World Peace, Angry Penguins, and Miracles

Strange Firefox issue

2009-09-16T12:02:00.003-04:00

Got this strange issue with Firefox. I was customising it so that I save as much screen real estate as I can. I use the Tiny Menu addon and move everything UP to the menu bar (all the navigation items and the two folders in my bookmarks toolbar). I then turn off (uncheck) the Navigation and Bookmarks toolbars - leaving my with one menubar line and the tabs.

Now, odd thing is my two Bookmark folders appear only until I close and reopen FF. Then they disappear (i.e. minimize to a small blue arrow) until I "customise" the interface again - just clicking customise then closing the window that opens does the trick - no moving of buttons, etc.

Adventures with Jeff - BUGS!

2009-06-19T07:48:00.003-04:00

Part 3 of my hopefully ongoing series on my friendship with Jeff brings us to his incredible phobia with regards to insects. He hated bugs...and eggs and tequila, but those are other stories.

Once, we had to go under our friend's raised cottage...literally raised on jacks. We had to jack up the cottage about six more inches. There was easily two dozen to do. I think Jeff lasted 5 minutes until a daddy long legs dropped onto his face. He watched from inside his car, armed with a can of raid.

On a particular nice June evening, Jeff, the Hottie, and I went to our local pub and decided to sit out on their second floor deck.

Beautiful evening, moon brightly shining, beer flowing, june bugs hovering around the patio lights, sounds of someone puking in the alley below...wonderful summer evening in Ottawa. Ah.

Anyhoo, I decided, for whatever strange reason, to order the fruit, cheese, and veggie platter instead of something recently killed, gutted, and grilled.

As the waitress handed me my platter, a red grape rolled off and landed onto the patio deck near my chair. About an hour later, after a few more beers, Jeff gave a start and swatted at a june bug that had flown in front of his face. He clipped it towards me and it landed on the deck. He asked if he killed the little bastard. I reached down and picked up the grape. Holding it 'twixt my thumb and forefingers I showed it to him and said "Nope, but I'll get it. Here!". With that, I squished the grape and let it's "guts" goop down over my fingers and onto the table. Then I licked my fingers.

Fortunately, we were overlooking the alleyway, because he never would have made it to the bathroom.

Adventures with Jeff - To the Gym!

2009-06-16T07:41:00.002-04:00

My buddy Jeff and I joined a gym once and actually went regularly. Now, Jeff always biked a lot, and he has one of those sick metabolisms that allow him to eat a double order of fajitas and still be hungry...and yet not gain a freaking pound. Needless to say, he was the "in shape" one.

Now, we joined that particular gym because a friend (hot) of ours worked there. She was tall, long legged, and incredibly pretty (hot). Jeff had a thing for her...well, okay..so did I. But he saw her first, so the bro' code was in effect.

One evening, she (the Hottie) joined us in our workout. This was around the same time that both of us realized that the place was actually less a gym than it was a "meet market" (or is that a "meat market"...not sure). This became really obvious when the Macho Man, in a cut-off sweat shirt (no sleeves, bottom portion cut off up to the ribs), lycra shorts, and cheesie, neon-coloured running shoes, followed the Hottie around. Everytime she was on a machine, he was on the one next to her.

Jeff and I thought the look on her face was hysterical: rolling her eyes while scrunching her face up. What we didn't realize was that she was not only reacting to his constant attention, she was also reacting to his odour. We finally caught a whiff of it when she climbed into a leg lift machine next to us and he, of course, followed close behind, still attempting to engage her in conversation. The Macho Man had terrible BO mixed with some sort of cheap cologne. Like that sickly sweet smell of rotting fruit.

Out of the corner of her mouth, she whispered to us "Get this guy away from me!". I had just finished my final rep on a bench press and Jeff had just started, so I stood there talking to her in a flirty sort of way, hoping to make it clear to the Macho Man that she was interested in someone else. It seemed to work, as he shut up for a bit, while working on the leg press machine. There he was grunting away while doing less than half of the weights.

He finished his reps, and stood up to stretch, use the Hottie's machine to put his leg up. Once again, he began to flirt with her. I asked if he was finished with the leg press, and he studiously ignored me. I jumped onto it and started my reps...about the same time Jeff finished up and walked over to me.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, Jeff was the "in shape" one, but I always surprised him when it came to my leg strength. As an ex-competitive swimmer/lifeguard, I always had strong legs...but he was amazed that I could do full reps with all the weights on a leg press machine.

So I start my reps and make a big show, complete with a loud exclamation "Whoa! Man, this is too light. Just about overextended myself. Jeff, can you move the bar down to the bottom." Jeff and the Hottie laughed, and the Macho Man's face went a little pink as I started my reps.

He huffed over to the bench press machine, and when he struggled to lift the weight setting that Jeff and just done, Jeff walked over and asked him if he wanted it put on a lower setting. I laughed so hard, while pushing on the weights, that I farted.

Macho Man got up and stormed away.

His odour lingered for a good twenty minutes.

Adventures with Jeff

2009-05-06T10:11:00.002-04:00

A few years ago, a buddy of mine, Jeff, and I went to Alexandria Bay for the July 4th celebration. After checking into our motel, we headed out to the docks to eat at this great restaurant we knew about and where we could catch a boat to take us out into the bay for the fireworks that evening. On the way there, we saw a souped up AMC Gremlin: racing car green, tinted windows, mag tires, wicked sounding engine...all on a Gremlin. I started to laugh as the car passed us going in the opposite direction, and it stopped. The driver got out, as well as three passengers. They were huge. The driver approached me. I could hear my friend whisper “You idiot…”, then the driver looked at me and asked, “What’s so funny?”. I thought for a second and figured, in for a penny, in for a pound. So, I swallowed that little voice inside of me that was saying be careful, and replied, “Um, dude. You souped up a Gremlin.” Then waited. Incredibly, his friends started to laugh and one said to him, “Told you, man. It’s a Gremlin!”

The driver looked pleadingly towards me and pointing to his car, said “Yeah, but look man, it’s in great condition! I mean, I redid the interior, brand new engine. I just couldn’t afford a better car! C’mon man, look at it!” I can remember hearing Jeff whisper “You lucky bastard!” Turned out that his friends had been busting his chops over his choice of wheels, like guys do. We ended up hanging around them the whole weekend. Great bunch of guys.

I think Jeff spent a lot of his time with me shaking his head and looking for the quickest route to the exit. There was this one time we had gone to see Cobra with Sylvester Stallone. Before the previews, we could hear a woman directly behind us nattering away incessantly. This continued throughout the previews, and when the movie started she laughed and said, dismissively “Oh, is this the guy that saved us from the communists in Rambo?”. At that, I had had enough, turned around and said “If you don’t want to watch the movie, you can always leave. At least shut up so we can hear it.” I have learned it pays to scout out the “enemy” before engaging. The guy she was with looked like a football player. I think his biceps were bigger than my legs. He didn’t say anything, and I turned back around and watched the whole movie thinking he was going to punch the back of my head. Jeff leaned over and whispered, “You’re on your own, dude.” I guess he had had enough of me putting him into possible situations in which we get our asses kicked.

So, with the movie over and the house lights up, I stood, turned, and looked at the guy as he was getting out of his seat. His date was already up and walking away in a huff. The guy gave me a small smile and a thumb’s up and he said, in a quiet voice “God, I thought she would never shut up. Thanks, man. Worst blind date ever.”

Jeff always thought I was going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person and get us into trouble.

Random thoughts about Bananas and hair curlers, et al.

2009-04-30T18:06:00.006-04:00

I had always wondered about the bananas and the trench coats of opportunity foisted upon humankind without the benefit of clothespins or tater tots. Notwithstanding the confusion that arises when benevolent hair curlers are lost in the miasma of idyllic hip hop, or festooned with the colourful branches that swooned from the trunks of compact cars, the great unwashed occasionally rise above the panderings of chimpanzees and find themselves the sole occupants of deflated dirigibles.

Outside, the plaid is covered in homesick pancakes, and only the trumpet sees the truth in trampolines.

That's all I have to say about that.

IE8 Beta 2 - GUI issues

2009-04-14T09:40:00.007-04:00

Once again, MS, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant in the browser market, has been hammering out the new iteration of Internet Explorer: Version 8. Here's a screenshot of what it currently looks like:

You will note some pain in the ass features. First, take a look at the address bar - only google.com is highlighted. Actually, the rest of the address is "de-highlighted" in that it is set to a dull, pale gray. This is called "domain highlighting" and it's supposed to give users the ability to more readily identify spoofed addresses. Whatever. Next, note the "Favorites" button on the tab line. This gets put there when you choose to not display the "Favorites bar" (when you right-click somewhere in the bar area, a menu appears with checks beside the menus you have chosen to display. In this example, I have turned OFF the favorites bar). Why is the button on the same line as the tabs? I have no idea, but there is NO WAY to move it. Look where the menu bar is (the one with File/Edit/View, etc.) and the Home and Print buttons. Like IE7, there is no way short of installing an addon called IE7Pro can you move these.

Here is what I want the IE8 interface to look like:

Note how clean this looks. How very little real estate is taken up by crap. If you want, you can even hide the Menu bar at top, if you so desire.

The Monk

2009-03-17T11:36:00.001-04:00

Back in 1979, near the end of the 11th Grade, something occurred that made me a bit of a legend at my high school.

First, some background: St. Pius X was a catholic high school in suburban Ottawa, and grades 11 to 13 were not funded by the Ontario government, though grades 9 and 10 were. That meant tuition. Nothing major…something like $500 a year. Since the senior grades were considered private, the school was not as accountable to the province with regards to the quality of their teaching staff. That brings us to Sister Ethel Snetsinger. Now, this woman was destined to be a nun upon being burdened with such an unfortunate name. She looked like her name and if you could picture an “Ethel Snetsinger” you would picture her.

I didn’t dislike her, nor had she a personality that would make anyone dislike her. She was sweet-tempered, but daft. For instance, she would mis-pronounce “gigantic” by making the second-g a soft one (ji-jan-tic).

She reminded me a lot of the rich woman who was cluelessly the butt of the Marx brothers’ jokes. Once, during a discussion of guilds and apprenticeships, someone acted confused and posed this scenario: “If you are…oh, I don’t, a baiter of hooks, and you join the guild, you start off as an apprentice baiter, and then what?” She responded, walking right into the joke with “After several months you become a journeyman baiter, and then, after several years of study and work, you would become a Master baiter.” Seriously, she said that and had a quizzical look on her face when the class erupted in laughter.

In grade 11, I had her for my home room and Ancient History, the first class of the day. Throughout the school year, she would call me Brian, and my friend Brian, she would call Steve. Typically, the half-hour after home room/first class was to be spent in either a daily mass in the school’s chapel, or in study, which meant you stayed in the classroom and did homework, read, etc. In early March of 1979 we were on the topic of monasteries, and how they became the foundations of universities.

On the way home one afternoon, my friends and I had to walk around a pile of garbage bags left out for the next day’s pickup. I noticed a doll sticking out the pile and pulled it out. It was a monk, complete with the Friar Tuck hairdo and cloth robes. I noticed that the head moved, and when I pushed down on it, this huge penis pivoted up through the robes. We all had a great laugh and I put it in my backpack. The next morning, we actually found the box: The Monk with “rising” action.

When I got to class, she wasn’t there yet, and I put the doll on a table beside her desk. Other than my two friends, I didn’t think anyone saw me put it there. Mike was in my home room, but Gary reluctantly had to go to his own class, one floor down. The classroom filled up and first period began. Sister Snetsinger walked in with some sheets and began handing them out, not noticing the monk. About half way through class, as we were all busy with individual work, she finally saw the Monk and picked it up. I began to laugh, which hurt because I was trying to hold it in. She looked at it and asked if anyone knew where this came from, and she commented on how appropriate it was given our current topic.

For the rest of Ancient History, she would periodically pick it up and examine it, but nothing more. When Mass/Study came, most of the class stayed, which is rare. I knew then that something was up and that word of the Monk must have spread. I could see Gary out in the hallway sticking his head around the door to the classroom, until he was caught lingering by a passing teacher. Again and again, throughout study she would pick it up. By this point I was in tears, trying hard not to laugh out loud. Then the bell for the next class rang and we were off.

My second last class of the day was just down the hall, and, as usual, I sat at the back near the open door. Right in the middle of class, there was a loud shriek from down Sister Snetsinger’s classroom, and the sound of students laughing. Something had happened, and I had missed it.

Coincidentally, my last class was in Sister Snetsinger’s room, and I asked the teacher, Ms. Kennedy, if she knew what the scream was all about. She looked up at me through her strange glasses with a knowing half-smile and said she didn’t know.

That was it. Never heard anything more about it. Then, that summer, when I was working up at camp, my mother phoned and told me that during the break in the summer (mid-July) when I was back home, we would have to go to the school to meet the guidance counsellor and vice-principal. Apparently, all my tuition cheques had been returned and I would have to go to the school to discuss the situation. I, honestly, did not even think about the Monk incident.

My parents and I went to the school and were told that it was because I had supposedly asked a provincial school inspector how Sister Snetsinger had done during a surprise audit of her class. THAT was the reason they gave. Something I was not guilty of, which I proclaimed loudly. Nevertheless, Sister Snetsinger had heard me do this, had felt insulted, and for that they were expelling me. Just then, she herself came into the office, looked at me and asked “Brian, what are you doing here.” She had been expecting “Steve” who was Brian. The counsellor and vice principal apologised and took the cheques back. I remember my father remarking that she had me in her class for a full school year, and she still didn’t know who I was.

On the way home, my parents could not figure out how that was an expellable offense. That’s when it hit me. They knew, without proof, about the monk but couldn’t pin it on me. I told my parents…my dad laughed and my mom did that mom-head-shaking thing.

Two years later, in grade 13, I went into the teacher’s lounge to get something and the monk was there on the desk. 3 years after that, I went back to the school to perform in different scenes from plays throughout the school’s 25 year history. Some of the performers were current students, and when they heard my name, asked me if I was the one who put the Monk in Sister Snetsinger’s classroom. In May 2008, on the school’s reunion website, someone posted the story about the Monk.

The Stupidity of a union

2009-02-03T11:11:00.003-05:00

In March of 2008, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU local 279, specifically) which represents city of Ottawa bus drivers (OCTranspo) was in a legal strike position. They waited until December 10th to walk off the job. December. In the winter. Just before Christmas. In the middle of a recession. Roads were clogged, businesses lost millions, and everyone across the city was affected.

Over 1000 buses that shuffled some 400,000 people daily around the city sat parked at various bus depot centres for 51 days until the threat of being ordered back to work by the federal government prompted the union to agree to binding arbitration. The union's head, André Cornellier, left the announcement press conference in a stretch limo. In the middle of a recession.

Some blame the mayor and city staff, others the unions. I don't care about the strike, per se. What I do care about is the timing. They could have walked off the job in March of 2008, or waited until the summertime. But that wouldn't have had the desired effect: it wouldn't inconvenience enough people. People who NEED public transportation don't have cars and are usually living on a small income. These people were the ones most affected by this strike. They can't afford taxis (if you could even get one in a reasonable amount of time). There are stories of people walking for hours to and from work, people unable to go to cancer treatments, people losing money because they couldn't GET to work, and people who lost their jobs altogether.

Due to maintenance concerns, it will take almost 2 months before all the buses are running on their usual schedules. More delays, more traffic headaches. In the winter. What do the drivers expect in the way of behaviour from the passengers who return to taking the buses? Everyone, including the mayor, is hoping people are nice and sweet-tempered. But already there are rumblings of reprisals: not paying to get on and telling the driver to "Fuck off" being the main one.

Bernie Gauthier, the chief executive of the Ottawa PR firm Delta Media thinks that many drivers could face irate passengers when bus service resumes.

“I think they will have a hard time coming back. Right now there doesn’t seem to be a lot of sympathy for the drivers and for their union.”

Not "..a lot of sympathy"? Maybe it had to do with going on strike. In the winter. Just before Christmas. In a recession. The drivers pretty much deserve whatever they get.

Wow...

2008-12-15T12:10:00.007-05:00

I haven't posted in a while. It's not that there hasn't been anything to rant about, it's just that there has been TOO much to rant about.

So, let's recap:

1. A bunch of people who were obviously unqualified have been making financial decisions for years. In fact, these idiots were also the ones other people went to for financial advice. As you know, they were more than idiots...they were criminally stupid. The end result is the current recession. Here's my feeling on it:

Then the US government has the flat-out balls to bail out these fuckers, with NO conditions attached to the money.

2. A bunch of people who were obviously unqualified tried to form a coalition with the separatist Bloc Quebecois to usurp power from the duly elected, albeit minority, Conservative government.

3. A bunch of people who were obviously unqualified have been running the crappy car industry giants Ford, Chrysler, and GM which are failing miserably and are screaming for government handouts.

I could rant about the three above, but really, I have lost the energy. Besides, it will all even out when the Zombies take over...

(From: http://shop.cafepress.com/design/13764376)

Ovechkin

2008-10-23T09:48:00.002-04:00

Over the past few years, I have tired of sports in general. From hockey, to baseball, to football, to the Olympics...I just don't care anymore. The superstars of these sports turned me off of them. Prancing boors with more money than brains and terrible work ethics: how many times have you seen a player sign a huge contract, and then slack off?

But, even if you aren't a fan of hockey, there is one player that should make you stand up and take notice. Alexander Ovechkin, who plays for the Washington Capitals, is not the typical sort of superstar. Here's man who signed the richest contract in NHL history - something around $100 Million dollars - and who lives with his parents. This is a guy who, on his birthday, in the preseason, skated hard during an optional practice, when he could have been home relaxing. This guy ENJOYS his sport. Last season, he became the first player to win all of the following trophies in the same year: The Hart (league MVP), the Lester B. Pearson (MVP voted by other players), the Maurice Richard (most goals), and the Art Ross (most points).

In January, during a game against Montreal, he broke his nose, split open his lips, and simply score 4 goals, including the overtime winner. Every goal he scores, he celebrates with an exuberance you have to see to believe. Youtube him. Trust me.

Spore and iPhone/iPod/iCrap

2008-09-16T14:17:00.002-04:00

I can't help but see similarities between the latest PC Game fiasco Spore and any flavour of "i"Anything from Apple.

Spore has come packaged with a terrible DRM application called SecuROM. In a draconian measure, EA (Electronic Arts), the publishers of the game, forced this app on unsuspecting users - that is, nowhere on the box does it say this crap will be installed along with the game. Among other things SecuROM enforces a 3-install limit...which means if you rebuild your machine, you have used up an "install". If you rebuild your machine (or add a harddrive), you have used up an install. After the third time, you will be forced to call EA to plead with them to get another install key. Fun, eh? The idea was this was supposed to end/limit piracy. Laughably, the game was available, DRM free, almost a week before the game hit the shelves.

People have reacted to the DRM and have given Spore a terrible rating on Amazon.

I won't ever install a game onto my PC with this kind of crapware on it. Ever. I will pirate a game first. I hate doing that, since it doesn't support the developers, but I will not cripple my PC with that shit.

How does all that relate to iCrap from Apple? Well, what would you say if I told you that I created an MP3 player that needs propietary software to load music onto it. That this software, while residing on your PC, will take up resources even if you are not using the device and there is nothing you can do about it short of uninstalling the whole application? Would you buy that? Well, if you own any piece of iCrap, you have. I bought my son an LG MP3 player. You plug it into a USB port and it pops up like a removable drive. That's it. Copy the files over and voila. Done.

iCrap is like DRM. Anything that makes your PC more difficult to use is something you should avoid. Anything that requires some convoluted method to get to work, is something that should never have been created.

American Date format

2008-08-18T08:04:00.002-04:00

As a developer, one of the things that piss me right off is the ridiculous default date format used by Microsoft's OSs. When you choose to use the English (US) format for dates and numbers, you get, as the default the following date format: mm/dd/yy (or perhaps you get mm/dd/yyyy which is only marginally better). The international date format is yyyy/mm/dd, and there is an excellent rationale for always using this.

Take today's date: 2008-08-18. In the default setting it would read 08/18/2008. Let's pretend that we are developing a report and need to extract information from a database. If we have the following dates, in the mm/dd/yyyy format and we decide to put it into a character field (for instance, we shove it into a Word document table and the column is set as Text), how would you expect it to sort?

08/18/2008
08/17/2008
08/18/2009
08/19/2008
08/17/2009
08/19/2009

You would think it would sort in proper date order, but you would be wrong. It ends up like this:

08/17/2008
08/17/2009
08/18/2009
08/18/2009
08/19/2008
08/19/2009

Now, you could set it as a Date column, but there are many times you have this in a CSV format and you import into an app that just dumps it into a Text or Char field. Then you end up with this issue. If the dates had been formated correctly: yyyy-mm-dd then it doesn't matter if the data is stored as Text/Char or Date. It would sort correctly no matter what:

2008-08-17
2008-08-18
2008-08-19
2009-08-17
2009-08-18
2009-08-19

There is a much greater problem when the date is stored in the format mm/dd/yy (that is, with only a two digit year). If you get a date that looks like this 04/05/07 how do you know what it is without first knowing the exact format that was used? That could be yy/mm/dd...hell, it could even be dd/mm/yy. An application may not convert the date to its date format correctly at all. If I were to import that into my database, it would become 2004/05/07 and NOT 2007/04/05 as was the intention (mm/dd/yy).

Short dates should be stored as yyyy-mm-dd (I don't care if you use a "-" or a "/", but with a backslash, if you were to use the date in a filename it would give you an error since filenames can't include "/". It means you would have to strip out the "/"s before creating a file. Small thing I know, but still, an extra step is an extra step). This format should be used internationally.

The R-Word and the Olympics

2008-08-13T11:44:00.005-04:00

First...

Are you kidding me? Some people are upset at the use of the words "retard" and "retarded" in the new comedy Tropic Thunder by Ben Stiller.

Any word can be hurtful, depending on its context. How many more perfectly legitimate words are we going to lose to political correctness? What about "bastard"? Will organizations populated by people who were born to out-of-wedlock mothers rise up in ire? If I call someone a "moron" will I be chastized by groups representing the stupid? This is freaking retarded.

Second...

What the fuck gets everyone excited about the Olympics? Men's Synchronized Diving...are you for fucking real? Canada, as of this post, has won NO MEDALS...and some are saying that the lack of support for Canada's swimmers, divers, and pool dancers (oh, sorry...synchronized swimmers) is the problem. That in non-Olympic years, no one gives a shit. Well...newsflash...why should we? Seriously.

Michael Phelps could win 8 gold medals...wow...he's a hero. With that and several years at Harvard Medical, and more sweat and toil he could ever encounter in the pool, he might do something important...like find a cure for cancer.

Now people, re: morons (see above...hope I didn't offend the stupid) want to increase PUBLIC funding of amateur athletes...see...this is the problem with morons:
a government's first responsibilities are to things like Health, Education, and Security...not funding athletes and the arts...not at the expense of those more important responsibilities.

GM Struggling to survive...its own stupidity

2008-07-21T10:00:00.002-04:00

I know I use the words STUPID or STUPIDITY quite often in my blog titles, but this is an apt description of GM....

From an article by the Associated Press entitled "GM in struggle to survive"

General Motors Corp., struggling to survive, will slash jobs, cut production, sell assets and suspend its dividend for the first time in 86 years as it tries to ride out an unprecedented collapse of its core U.S. market.

This is entirely self-inflicted. In the documentary Who Killed The Electric Car, the filmmakers outlined the issues surrounding the EV1 and how it got "killed" by combined stupidity. GM published comments disputing the findings of the film and stated that there was a limited market for EV1s...and then pursued the manufacture of gas guzzling SUVs and trucks in increasingly greater numbers. This action was, of course, incredibly short-sighted, given the state of the oil industry today.

Short-sightedness is a common factor in the fall of many companies, and GM should not be immune to it...that is, NO government bailouts should ensue. What GM meant to state, in their critique of the findings of the film, is that there was no huge short-term demand for the electric car, and most companies only care about short-term gain...to their detriment.

Successful companies need to look further into the future than the next fiscal shareholders' meeting. It needs to look beyond the current economy and focus on what will most likely happen in the next 10 years. It didn't take a genius to figure out that, with the invasion of Iraq in early 2002, oil would start a new rollercoaster ride...and from that event, GM should have begun planning. They didn't.

Toyota did. So did Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Kia, and on and on...just not the big 3 in the States. Stupidity.

Zombies!

2008-06-27T11:05:00.002-04:00

I have come to the conclusion that any movie would be made better by the inclusion of zombies! Any movie!

Take the Titanic, for instance. What if the reason the crew was distracted and ran the ship into the iceberg was because they were busy fighting off the zombie hordes? That would rock.

A movie like Gigli, arguably one of the biggest flops in recent years, would probably have been a great hit had the plot changed from:

The mob tells hitman Gigli to kidnap the mentally handicapped brother of a California DA from a mental hospital. While holding the mental patient in his apartment, Gigli starts to fall for Ricki, a "lesbian assassin", who is sent to assist him.

To:

The mob tells hitman Gigli to kidnap the mentally handicapped brother of a California DA from a mental hospital. While holding the mental patient in his apartment, a zombie outbreak ensues, first engulfing the city then the country. Ricki, a lesbian assassin sent by the mob to assist Gigli, makes it to the apartment in time. The three of them attempt to fight off hungry zombies and try to find a way to survive.

Come on, you telling me you wouldn't PAY to see that?

I guarantee that I can make any movie...ANY movie (Disney cartoons included) into a better film idea by adding zombies! Test me!

Ribbon Bar - Office 2007 and up - Total Crap!

2008-06-25T14:10:00.005-04:00

Recently, I had the unfortunate experience of helping someone with a Word document. Unfortunate, because the person had Office 2007 on their machine. All she wanted to do was PRINT. That's right...here's what the screen sort of looked like:

So...how do you print? If you were a first time user and you opened a document and this is what the interface looked like, what would you do?

Thrash around for a few minutes getting more and more frustrated until you want to grab Bill Gates by the ears and smash his head through your monitor? No? Maybe that's just me.

How about searching vainly, avoiding Help because, frankly, it should be FUCKING OBVIOUS!

Do you think it's in the View bar? Page Layout? Nope, and nope.

See that colourful little ball in the top left of the screen. Yup. You click THAT and this opens:

Then you select Print, then click one of the Print options. Wow...how intuitive.

For fun, go to google and search for "how do you print in word 2007" (try it without the quotes, otherwise you are looking for an exact string). Now, when people have to ask how to PRINT in a Word Processing application, time to go back to the drawing board.

Oh, the wanks and apologists will tell us that we just need to "leeearrrnnnn" it and all will be well. Take a course to learn how to PRINT. Brilliant.

You voluntarily bought this piece of shit...you're an idiot.

Starforce and the stupidity of copy protection

2008-06-16T09:53:00.001-04:00

Many games use a copy protection scheme called Starforce. Essentially, this program installs drivers onto your machine that will not allow you to run an application, in this case a game, without the proper disk. It is incredibly intrusive, though apologists will claim that it helps stop piracy. I doubt it. Very few of these games stay protected for any significant length of time.

Now, for fun, especially if you are a gamer of sorts, take a look at that list of games. Notice anything? Most are nameless crap that no one really ever bought. Was that because of the copy protection. I think it could be...here's my argument:

Many times I have bought a game and when I started playing it, found it sucked. Like Prey, for instance. Graphically beautiful, Prey gets dull really, really quickly. Of course, I haven't played it since I first picked it up, which means I am out $60. What I usually do is get a "cracked" copy of a game I am interested in, try it out, and if I like it, I buy it. F.E.A.R was one, I liked it enough to buy a copy (though it was on sale :) ), and, more significantly, Morrowind. Played it for an hour or two, then raced to the store to get a copy. Brilliant game. Could I have gotten the same thing with a demo version, probably. But, I had a copy, tried it, and liked it.

I have since bought all the expansions and the newest in the Elder Scrolls series, Oblivion. Would you consider that a net gain, or loss for Bethesda (publishers of the games)? Net gain, I would say, and a considerable one at that. The only thing I do download, still, is a No CD crack (for every game I buy). This is so I don't have to constantly put the disc in the drive each time I want to play. I hate that.

I recently purchased a game I found in the bargain bin of a Giant Tiger: Rush for Berlin. I only paid $3, so no big deal. I was going to give it to my Dad, who has been looking for a good WWII strategy game. I got it home, and read through the EULA. One section caught my eye:

...might install software alleged to interfere with your installed software or hardware...uninstalling the game will not remove Starforce...

I couldn't believe it, but really shouldn't have been surprised. I thought, however, that given the sale price, and the fact that the game was 3 years old, that they would have released a patch that does away with Starforce...many games do that (once everyone who really wanted a copy has one). Nope.

I will not EVER install something with this kind of copy protection. This only penalizes the legitimate buyer, not the pirate. Starforce has been known to screw up optical disk drives to the point that they can no longer function. Fun, eh?

The frightening part is that bill C61 was recently tabled in Canada, which makes the US DMCA look like a wimp. One part talks about making it illegal to circumvent copy protection, even if for personal use (such as the No CD crack)! Excuse me? This is insane.

This will drive me to pirate shit, just to piss them off.

Yes, stuff will get pirated, and that sucks. However, not every pirated game, or any kind of software for that matter, is a lost sale to the publisher. You cannot make a one-to-one correlation. Too many times games are pirated that the person has no intention of buying, not because they are cheap, but because they either can't afford it (Microsoft Office, anyone) and/or because they wouldn't have bought it in the first place (Prey comes to mind...if I had pirated it first, I wouldn't have bought it) :)

I just want a phone!

2008-06-10T14:41:00.003-04:00

Wow...Apple has announced details on their new iPhone 3G which, among other things is cheaper than the original iPhone (which makes the early adopters look like morons...but I digress). According to Steve Jobs...

The new iPhone, sporting a thinner and sleeker look, will support faster 3G (third-generation) broadband wireless networks and come with built-in GPS (Global Positioning System) capabilities, Jobs said. Support for 3G networks will enable the new iPhone to download data up to 2.8 times faster than the earlier model, Jobs said. Built-in GPS will make it easier for users to navigate roads.
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The iPhone 3G will come with a 3.5-inch screen and have better battery life, with talk time of five hours, stand-by time of 300 hours, six hours of high-speed browsing time, 20 hours of audio and seven hours of video, Jobs said. Some who had previously bought iPhones complained about its battery life and that was a problem that Apple needed to solve with the new iPhone, Jobs said.

It will probably cure cancer, except the brain cancer you will get from using the damn thing all the time, do your laundry, and balance your checkbook.

Here's my problem: I just want a phone. A simple, freaking phone. The only "option" I want is Text Messaging. That's it. Just a phone. Only someone who is extremely busy needs something like this. I never want to be that busy, or that fucking dorky.

Please, does anyone just make a cellphone anymore?

Sex and the City

2008-05-30T08:04:00.002-04:00

All spring I have been seeing list of the most anticipated movies for this summer, and somehow, inexplicably, Sex and the City kept popping up on that list (see Yahoo Movies for an example). Apparently, there is a lot of buzz going around Hollywood that this movie might be huge and do some really big box office. Why is that, you ask? Well, Harry Medved from Fandango, the online movie ticket site said:

"We can't remember the last time a movie has created so much anticipation among female moviegoers from their 20s through their 40s."

There's the key demographic you look for in a summer flick, no?

I have asked female friends of mine, quite a few really, and none even watched Sex and the City when it was on TV. In fact, none are "anticipating" the film with any degree of enthusiasm.

This is my prediction: a moderate opening weekend, simply because there's really nothing else opening up against it, and then it will fizzle.

Dennis Julien

2008-05-05T08:07:00.003-04:00

Last Monday, a guy I used to hang around with, but who I haven't seen in a couple of years, passed away. I was a regular reader of Dennis' blog (dennis.ca - see my list of links), and have always been amazed at his incredible photography. I think his site is down now, which is a shame.

Several years ago, we shared a room in Vegas when a bunch of us went down - the excuse that time was a double bachelor party...though the guys have never needed a reason. It was on that trip that I got to know him better than the few years we worked together.

Back home in Ottawa, he told me about the day his sister died. I don't think I will ever forget it. I don't know if he ever told anyone else, though I am sure he did. He asked that I not mention it, so it's not like it ever came up in general conversation.

The story was heart-wrenching, and I think he told it because he had to. I remember mentioning that he should write it down, perhaps post it on his blog. He said he might, one day. I don't know if he ever posted something about it on some other blog he might have had, or perhaps he has it written down somewhere, but never had the strength to publish it.

So most of us will remember Dennis as the big guy sitting at the Morley, beer in hand, cracking jokes and defending the Leafs. We will remember him as incredibly smart, and a fantastic photographer...and if I recall, a terrible gambler (hey, he rooted for the Leafs!).

I will also remember him as a guy who told me about his most painful moment...about every emotion he experienced on that day, and how it still affected him. Before that, he was just one of the guys, someone I knew through work, and the Vegas trip. After that story, though, he became...well...Dennis.

Cheers, buddy.

Stuff

2008-04-28T09:51:00.002-04:00

Just a short-story (somewhat dated) I wrote a while ago...hope the 2 or 3 readers of my blog enjoy it :)
*******************************

I remember everything like it was yesterday. Well, actually, it was yesterday. I figured I had better write this all down before I forgot most of it...or all of it. It was cold out, below freezing. The frost clung tightly to every metal post and window pane in town. Odd for mid-July, I thought. Damn strange really, and not the least convenient since I had prepared for a lovely summer day by hastily donning my swimming trunks and a t-shirt, and had already began walking to the beach. I was halfway there before I realised that the reason I was shaking was NOT due to an adrenaline rush of anticipatory excitement. And, besides, my legs had turned a bland shade of puce-blue.

Now, usually I'm not one to complain. I mean, weather does as weather does, and any attempt to truly predict it is futile at best, but this was more than a little annoying. To whom should I have directed my complaints? The government could be blamed for a lot of things, but the weather was outside of their jurisdiction (fortunately, since that meant they were unable to tax it). The only person I thought could be held liable was God Himself, or Herself depending on your political-correctness.

So I hauled my shivering tukus over to my local RC church, whereupon I began berating the nearest religious icon for a most annoying bout of unseasonable weather.

“Okay God!” I said, rather presumptuously I thought. “Okay. I know You have got to be busy with running the entire universe and all, but I think You had better give some thought to the weather down here. Things are going haywire! Hot and sunny one second, freezing cold the next. Hey, I’m on holidays PAL!” By now my voice had risen to an almost deafening whisper, and since my courage was bolstered by the fact that I hadn’t been turned into a pillar of salt or zapped by a bolt of lightning, I began to speak even louder. “So..so...I think you had better get Yer butt down here and fix a few things before I get angry!”

A Priest, overhearing me, began to, in turn, berate me for my altogether sacrilegious and blasphemous display. When I surreptitiously pointed out the startling weather by grabbing the Priest by the front of his robes and slamming his head outside an open window, the Priest took one look outside, excused himself and stepped out the main church doors. Roughly three seconds later the Priest returned, a look of mixed disbelief and consternation on his face, and began whispering some unpriestly comments to the religious icon he had just accused me of practising heresy upon.

Figuring that a necessary scolding of the powers-that-be was well under way, by a source much better designed than I for such an undertaking, I hightailed my now warm patooties back to my apartment for a quick change of clothes. Several minutes later, winter boots and all, I proceeded out my front door once more right into a heat wave of noticeably more July-like conditions. By now I was becoming slightly bemused, as had several of my neighbours, some of which stood statue-still outside dressed in a hybrid combination of beach wear and ski suits.

I promptly retreated back into my abode, stripped naked, and sat my bare butt down in front of the television, determined to hear the official version of the events taking place; however, The Weather Network was a scene of uncontrolled chaos. Three weatherpersons had hanged themselves in desperation and the crew was playing chicken with the cameras. While somewhat amusing, I was determined to discover the wherefores, howtos and suchwhys about the recent, transitory weather patterns that plagued my otherwise dull and uninteresting life. I flipped it over to the All Religion Channel, to get a spiritual perspective only to be presented with another chaotic sight.

A Catholic Priest was quite busily defending himself with a candlestick while an old, bearded rabbi circled him warily. In the background, a Muslim smiled craftily, waiting for a chance to jump in. It seemed that each faction had accused the other of being the cause of this calamitous climate - something to do with the blasphemy of unbelievers. Just as the Catholic priest gained the upper hand by ramming the candlestick into the unprotected eye of the rabbi, a stray bolt of lightning turned the three combatants into crispy tots where they stood. The All Religion Channel, of course, cut immediately to a commercial for Depends undergarments.

CBC Newsworld was covering a press conference by the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, who were demanding more federal funding and whining that this was all a white-male plot designed to usurp the rightful control of females over the world. In the background, one of the gray-suited, gray-haired feminists could be seen giving a salutary “Sieg Heil”.

So then I figured that CNN would be the best choice, but discovered them still covering the Impeachment Trial of William Jefferson Clinton, 3142 day. Unfortunately, the Senate was slow to realize that Bill Clinton hadn’t been President for several years, and that, in fact, he had died not long after after his second term ended, after Hillary beat the crap out of him. His daughter, Chelsea had long since changed her name and was working as a professional Roller Derby queen/stripper named Monica Lewd-insky.

At that point, my phone rang, and I reached over to answer it.

“Hello” I said, not surprisingly.

“Hello, this is the operator, I have a long distance call from Acturus Prime Central Commander Poof’lie, will you accept the charges?”, intoned the voice of the operator. Now, normally, I would assume that I was the brunt of a weird joke from one of my equally weird friends and would hang up the phone, but given the rather odd events of the day, I decided that I had better accept this call.

“Er...yes, okay. I will accept the charges. Thank you operator.” I answered. There was a momentary click, a mumble from the operator, and then a voice boomed through the speaker of my phone.

“EARTHLING! WE ARE IN ORBIT AROUND YOUR EARTH AND ARE EVEN NOW CONTROLLING YOUR WEATHER. SURRENDER TO US OR WE WILL ANNIHILATE YOU!” Unfortunately, I only heard the word EARTHLING, actually, just part of the word…the “ER” sound. The volume of the voice was such that I was sent rocketing across the room only to crash into my mural of jungle cats. After the ringing in my ear, and the spinning of the room, stopped , I picked up the phone to hear....

“...Hello...hello...pitiful earthling? Are you there? We apologize for the volume, we have now since turned it down. We are waiting patiently for your surrender.”

I was a slightly bemused by the proceedings and still hadn’t fully recovered from being turned into a wall-hanging, but attempted to respond anyways.

“YEAH, I HEAR YA. BUT I THINK YOU’VE GOT THE WRONG NUMBER. MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY THE PRIME MINISTER OR SOMEONE LIKE THAT.” I yelled. I had to wait several seconds before I could hear someone, or something, shuffle itself off of a floor and return to the phone.

“Oh, sorry about that” The alien said “Would you happen to have this prime minister person’s number?”

“Um...no. Not quite. But you could try directory assistance at 411. They could probably help you out.” With that, the self-proclaimed Central Commander mumbled a few quick apologies, and sullenly hung up.

Suddenly, I felt in need of a very long, hot bath. In a surreal state of consternation, I shuffled myself over to the bathroom. Roughly twenty minutes later I was able to figure out the knobs and run myself a bath. My jumbled mind had finally settled down to something at least approximating hysteria, and I was just about to tootsie-test the steaming bath water, when the phone rang yet again.

Cursing the gods who toyed with me constantly, I went to the phone, noticing in passing through a window that the weather had seemed to turn back into winter.

“Hello?!” I said, curtly and with definite authority.

“Umm...hello...earthling? This is Acturus Prime Central Commander Poof’lie. Umm..earthling, I hate to bother you again, but I seem to be unable to reach this prime minister person. The being you call directory assistance was singularily unable to provide me with any assistance. Perhaps I could impose upon you yet again?” The being asked somewhat sweetly.

“Why should I help you?” I asked. “You want to take over my planet and subjugate the billions of inhabitants, turning them into your personal slaves.”

“Yes, I guess that’s true...however, we could make it...um...excuse me...did you say Billions?”

“Er..yeah...the population of the Earth is something like 5 Billion or so. Why?” I asked.

“Excuse me for a moment” With that, the being seemed to put down whatever it had been speaking into, and barked a series of outlandishly gutteral commands to what I could only assume was a subordinate. I heard a few thumps, a pitiful squeek, and after a few seconds Central Commander Poof’lie returned to the phone...or whatever.

“Umm..Earthling...we wish to offer our gravest apologies. It appears that the late former First Class Planet Examiner Perf’ril made a slight error estimating the population of your planet. His excuse was that he couldn’t imagine a paltry, little backwater marble of a planet harbouring that many semi-intelligent inhabitants, and thus arbitrarily took off a few zeros from his calculations...well...five zeros, actually. We...umm..well...we are unprepared at this time to continue with the planned invasion of your Earth. Please, disregard the preceeding comments...in fact, disregard the entire conversation. Thank you for your aid. Good-bye.”

With that, he/it hung up. I only remembered to hang up the phone several hours later when my hand cramped up and the blood drained from it. It took several more minutes to actually pry my stiffened claw from the receiver. After that I poured myself a stiff drink, flipped on the tube, and hummed along with the opening theme of The Simpsons….

The End.

Political-correctness stoops to new low

2008-04-15T08:18:00.003-04:00

News from about a week ago, but just getting to blogging about it now. An 8-year old boy in Westminster, Colorado was suspended from school for 3 days for sniffing a SHARPIE. That's right. He liked the smell of the pen and sniffed it, and the teacher told the principal, who then suspended him. For sniffing...a sharpie.

This from the article:

Dr. Eric Lavonas says non-toxic markers like Sharpies, while pungent-smelling, cannot be used to get high.

"I don't know whether it would be possible for a real overachiever to figure out a way to get high off them," Lavonas said. "But in regular use, it's just not something that's going to happen."

"If you went to Costco and bought 50 bags of Sharpies and did something to them, maybe there's a way to get creative and make it happen," Lavonas said.

Adams County School District 50 leaders were unfazed by the poison control center's medical opinion.

"Principals make hundreds of decisions everyday based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker,'" Benisch said.

Despite the medical evidence, Benisch promised to draw an even clearer line on markers.

"We've purged every permanent marker there is in this building," he said.

Behold the face of stupidity bordering on pure fucking bureaucratic evil, one Chris Benisch:

Probably small-dicked and picked on most of his life, Benisch more than likely became a teacher, then principal, so he could mold the minds of children and hold power for once in his soon-to-be-an-internet-laughingstock life. If I was a parent of a child in his school, I would either be demanding this fuck nuts resignation or outright firing. At the very least, I would kick his fat ass in the parking lot.

Ottawa Senators and Mediocrity

2008-04-09T09:49:00.003-04:00

I occasionally check out and contribute to a website called Hockey Trade Rumors (careful, there are a lot of popups if you are using IE6/7...and they spell Rumours that way, not me :) ). Back on February 26th, after the NHL trade deadline, I commented on a thread and wrote:

My prediction is a 7th seed going into the playoffs and a quick exit in the 1st round. I don't see this team pulling together and rising above their current mediocrity to avoid this fate.

I am a Sens fan, by the way.

When I wrote this, the Sens were still in 1st in the Eastern Conference. I later added:

The Sens have NOT played well since their 15-2 start. In fact, they are below .500 since that start.

At this rate, I will revise my prediction of a 7th place finish and actually predict them to be OUT of the playoffs altogether. This team has never shown the fortitude to pull out of slides...ever.

Ok. So I was ONE WIN wrong about this. In fact, had Carolina won, Ottawa would have been out of the playoffs altogether.

I bring this up because of the slew of articles decrying fans in Ottawa. In particular, Kelly Egan of the Ottawa Citizen wrote a column entitled: O Sens Army, where art thou?. He goes on to scold the fans who have seemingly deserted the team...fans who last year proudly stuck Sens flags out the windows of their cars in the thousands. He wonders "...whether the city has, under its pallid, bureaucratic exterior, a fickle heart." He later goes on to write:

In any professional sport, really, there is one champion; everyone else loses. Yet there are millions of fans. Why?

Because the plight of the fan is to make peace with losing. The fun part is to not look beyond one game, or even one period. Because sport and sport-watching, is the moment, not the end.

I would put it to Mr. Egan that the heart isn't fickle...it is both discerning and realistic. I didn't pick the Canadian's Men hockey team to win ANY medals at the last Olympics. Not because I wasn't a "fan", but because I understand that the team that was chosen was old and slow and couldn't compete at the Olympic level. I was right. Doesn't make me "fickle"...it makes me smart. I always wonder at the legion of fans of teams that do not have a chance at winning much, if anything. Take Major League Baseball, for instance. Why would "fans" of a terrible team (take the Detroit Tigers...as of this post, they are 0-7), teams that have no hope of ever winning because they cannot afford the astronomical salaries, bother going to or watching a game? What is the freaking point? The joy of the sport? Who likes to lose on a nearly constant basis? Well, except for fans of the Maple Leafs.

I must contradict Mr. Egan when he writes that "..sport and sport-watching, is the moment, not the end." It most certainly IS about the end, otherwise there is no point at all.

Government waste

2008-03-14T10:39:00.002-04:00

If you want further proof that government bureaucracies are incompetent and mishandle millions of dollars of tax payers' money, then read this:

As a consultant with the federal government, I design customized Help Desk and Asset Management solutions using an application called the Action Request System (aka Remedy ARS). Without getting technical, and in simple terms, it is a development environment that provides a layer on top of a database. Using this tool, I design forms and code to store information and process business rules. There are two approaches to providing a client with a solution: fully-customized or out-of-the-box. Fully customized applications can cost a lot in the short term, as the client has to pay for the development, from the ground up, of a full-fledged application. However, once developed, there are no licensing fees other than for the ARS layer which can be about $50,000 a year (including the licensing fees for the database). The out-of-the-box solution seemingly has one advantage, that is you can install it and work away. However, there are significant yearly licensing fees for the applications, broken into modules, as well as the ARS layer itself. These costs can be as high as $250,000 a year!

Fully-customized solutions can be problematic if there has been no proper development process. The application usually ends up looking like a patchwork of old, out-of-date code coupled with newer code...a series of bandage code holding it all together. However, every piece of it can be modified and cleaned up as per requirements, and an organization's business rules can be incorporated as they see fit. Some division needs a certain set of fields on this form to track specific asset data? No problem.

An out-of-the-box application is only grudgingly modifiable, the idea being that the client should follow the application's business rules, rather than the other way around...and heaven forbid if the organization wants to update to the latest version...any customized work will have to be reapplied, usually painfully.

But the out-of-the-box application can work if there is a proper business analysis performed and if every section of the organization buys into it. If not, it will be hell. This is where government bureaucracies have serious issues.

I have been developing in Remedy ARS since 1998. I have seen dozens of "solutions" and implementations. Some were abysmal failures...most middling so. The common element amongst the failures was the inability of the client to actually understand their role in the process. Governments are famous for this.

For example, a series of upper-level managers (Director Generals and Assistant Deputy Ministers) will sit in a room and discuss what they "need", without actually understanding the "need" since they are so far removed from people who actually DO the work, that their concept of "need" rarely translates into the needs of the department. What these managers need is something to make them feel that they are relevant. So, some smartasses come up with something called ITIL (The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of concepts and techniques for managing information technology (IT) infrastructure, development, and operations). This money making scheme...oops...I mean concept...was created, of course, by one of the most bureaucratized countries on Earth...the UK. ITIL is simply a common framework for IT management...it is supposed to be a starting point for managers to restructure they way they provide IT services to their clients. However, as with all things IT, it has become a buzzword which has excited managers. You say ITIL to a group of managers, and the collective saliva drooling from their mouths could create a new oasis in the Sahara.

Managers in the government love "shiny" things, and since they are not spending any of their own money directly, have no qualms about pissing it down the toilet. They will never be truly held accountable, so they don't care. Sales people know this, and will happily provide rigged demonstrations of their "products" (rigged in the sense that there is only a bit of data...so the application runs smoothly...and no one else is working on the app at the same time...which makes everything really, really quick). Then they flash some nice pie charts, a view fancy reports, some other useless bells-and-whistles, and they will have successfully distracted the managers who, at this point, only see the shiny things. One of the shiniest parts of the out-of-the-box solution from BMC (BMC Remedy IT Service Management 7.x: Application) is their CMDB (Configuration Management Database...from Wikipedia, Configuration Management (CM) is an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) IT Service Management (ITSM) process that tracks all of the individual Configuration Items (CI) in an IT system which may be as simple as a single server, or as complex as the entire IT department). A BMC technical rep gave a demo before which he mentioned that to successfully implement a CMDB, there should be months of business analysis. Roughly an hour later, a government manager asked when it could be installed. The BMC sales rep, also in the room, almost fainted he got a hard-on so quickly.

As a sop to proper business analysis, they are now paying some out of town firm $1000 a day to do a 21 day gap analysis. 21 days. Amazing.

This is what will happen: after spending several hundred thousand dollars, if not millions when you take salaries into account, the application will be put into production. People will complain that it is too slow, especially those in missions, like some countries in Africa which still use 56K lines; tons of customizations will be made; the application will only be partially used, not at all justifying its expenses; and then the managers who perpetrated this fiasco will be reorganized out, suffering no penalty for their stupidity. The team responsible for maintaining the app will take all the shit. Then they will have to upgrade to the newest version of the application, since the old version will no longer be supported. They will have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more to reapply the customizations...and the circle continues.

****************Update March 17, 2008****************
The consultant brought in to do the gap analysis is already 2 days behind the original time estimate of 21 days. He's been here for 4 days :)

Just let 'em die

2008-02-13T14:48:00.003-05:00

The more I hear and read about the US health care....um..."system(?)", the more I believe it is an exceptionally sound and viable model which should be adopted by the rest of the world. I mean, what other country has the balls to tell its middle class "Fuck you, you can't afford health insurance, you die. Too bad". That's some refreshing attitude to take towards the bulk of your citizenry. Soon, there will only be two classes of people in the US: the rich who can afford, well, anything; and the poor who exist on the largesse of the government through programs like medicaid and food stamps. Since the poor are much more easily controlled, this will allow the government to do what it wants, without fear of reprisal. The "unwashed masses" will be just that.

With most of what and how they think controlled by the media, Americans are unable to rationally resolve any issue that they face as a country. The media needs crime and wars to entice viewers, so no matter how ridiculous the claims made by government as a reason for going to war, for instance, they will be championed by the media because "It sells". Think I am being cynical? How many intrepid reporters delved into the reality of WMDs in Iraq? So, now that the media is so closely tied to the corrupt and incompetent governments which they were originally a check against, they will not report fairly on any issues to which the government is opposed. This includes health care, of course.

But, as far as Mr. and Mrs. Joe Average is concerned, as long as their televisions spew WWF and some evangelical bullcrap on a mostly daily basis, they don't care.