I want my PADD

The PADD (I forget what the acronym stands for) are those thin, handheld devices that are used as input devices and computers on Star Trek TNG and later (no, not tricorders). With this invention they move a step closer to reality. In fact, they'll probably be a considerably thinner.

Imagining two sheets of thin hinged glass being my computer staggers the mind. All of the 'projected' images on suspended glass screens in Sci-Fi movies/shows can be reality. It will be much easier to carry around a PC with you no matter where you go, or to extend several small pieces networked together to create a wearable computer.

With this technology, that commercial where you see the guy with the 'half-glasses' computer interface shouting "BUY! BUY! SELL! SELL!" while pidgeons scurry away from him becomes possible. I love it. I truly am looking forward to the next 20 years to see where we are. I bet I can get a full body replacement by then and essentially live forever.

Don't know if I'd really want to do that though.

Bet You Didn't Even Notice

The "root" if the Internet was attacked today. This story gives you the high-level as non-techie-as-possible explanation of what happened. If you notice, there are basically 13 servers that let all of us get from one site to another on the Internet. As the article states, Richard Clarke (no relation to Dick), warned long ago that an attack on the root DNS servers or "Top Level Domain" (TLD) servers would be devastating.

And it would.

And it wouldn't be hard.

These are the type of cyberattacks that are easy to accomplish (and have happened before) that could cripple things for quite a while.

The article doesn't explain what the TLD servers do, or why this would be bad, so I'll attempt to explain it in layman's terms.

The 'root' servers help convert the first level of DNS names to an IP address.

Huh? You say.

OK - Let me explain. This blog, http://jackburton.blogspot.com is hosted on a server with an IP address of 64.41.146.221 - How would you like to try to remember to type that number instead of jackburton.blogspot.com, or even if you bookmarked it with the number, imagine trying to send your link to other people. What if they had a bookmark with the same name already? Like Worthless Blog = 64.41.146.221 or something like that. Compound that with the fact that due to virtual hosting, you can have thousands of websites hosted on a single server with a single IP address. If you don't have DNS resolution, you don't get to any of the sites on that server. DNS (Domain Name Service) provides 'real' names to the IP addresses. The rub is, DNS names are read from Right-to-Left. (OK - all of you Islamic Conspiracy Theorists get to work now on this.)

So, when your computer asks for the IP address of jackburton.blogspot.com the DNS servers it has been assigned starts with the .com - Which is controlled by one of the 'root' servers. Therefore your computer asks the .com root server for the IP addresses of the DNS servers that control the blogspot.com domain. If the root server never answers, you never get there.

Now, when the root server is working, you get back the IP addresses of the DNS servers that are the Authority for the blogspot.com domain. Your computer then asks those servers for the IP address of the host by the name 'jackburton' - and the blogspot.com domain DNS servers reply with the correct IP address, 64.41.146.221 - Your computer then makes an HTTP GET command to http://jackburton.blogspot.com at 64.41.146.221 - which the webserver then translates to the correct virtual website and returns to you the correct data which your Web Browser re-assembles into what you see here. E-mail works the same way. Only E-mail talks through SMTP or POP3 or IMAP instead of HTTP.

Now, I have simplified a bit, your computer actually asks its assigned DNS servers to do all the work. When they get the final IP address, they send it back to your computer.

Still cornfused? Think of it like mailing a letter. If I was sending a letter to Jack Burton, 123 Anywhere Street, Anytown, AS (Any State), 12345 USA - I would address my letter like this:

Jack Burton
123 Anywhere Street
Anytown AS 12345
USA

Now, the equivalent for DNS would be:

jackburton
blogspot
.com

OK - We're missing one line, but it's the same thing. In fact drop the country designation off of the first example (because many of us don't use it because we rarely send international mail):

So we have:

Jack Burton
123 Anywhere Street
Anytown AS 12345

OK - Now imagine dropping off the 'Anytown AS 12345' from your letter. You'd have:

Jack Burton
123 Anywhere Street

What City? What State? What Country? It would never get there. It would sit in the dead letter office unless someone mailed it in the same zipcode as the destination and some mail carrier recognized it. The exact same thing would happed to all network packets not using the direct IP address of a server. The packets would not get there, and the internet would be for all intents and purposes, dead. Only sites and e-mail servers that controlled single domains would be accessible, and those only by IP address. Someone could set up a public WINS server or DNS server that everyone would have to use (so it better be a damn powerful server), and then the attackers would just flood the new public server with so much traffic that it would be useless as well.

Sorry about rambling, but with as dependent as we all are upon e-mail for business these days, it would have a huge impact on the economies of the world.

Got any questions? Drop me a line....

More Good News

I asked for it, and I got it. James sent me some good news for my blog. I was thinking more of good economic news, but I didn't specify. It doesn't matter anyway with the market up now several days in a row, even with some mixed bad indicators (damn those indicators) shows that maybe there is a little logic creeping into investment decisions. But I digress. Here are links to James' good news (and his comments):

The space shuttle Atlantis has safely returned to earth. Another successful mission!

The Russians, after an exploding rocket killed one of their ground crew, has successfully launched an orbital observatory to study black holes.

Something that may be a big boon to your business, new home builders are looking in to hooking everything with a pulse to the Internet.


Medical researchers have come up with a drug that might control premature ejaculation. Not that (ahem) I need that or anything. And there's no info on how the disgruntled wives that buy the drug will convince their husbands to take it.
My comments: Uh-huh - Suuuuure James - we know you don't need them - You've probably built up some thick calluses from those coated magazine pages - built in dapoxetine, eh?

A new dialysis machine might just save 2,000 lives a year.

He sent another reference to "The zoo in Kabul, Agfghanistan has been restocked by the kindness of a zoo in China." - but the link was the same as the dialysis machine one above. The 'a' 'f' 'g' and 'h' keys, and Control-C and Control-V are all left-handed keystrokes. James, your right hand is strong enough, time to work on your left. (See the link on dapoxetine above).

Thanks for the news!

Don't Touch Him, He Might Have a Virus

No, not some communicable disease, but a computer virus. Technology is wonderful, everytime we come up with something new it destroys the basis for much of the sci-fi that is out there. If you have read any of William Gibson's work of the Cyberpunk genre, you know about his futuristic vision of "hackers" eventually having cybernetic implants that will allow them to directly connect their brain to computer systems. Well this advancement changes all that. You don't need any external implant with conductors, simply using what we've had for thousands of years will allow us to interface with each other or with other systems.

Imagine a computer virus run rampant with this sort of technology. "Wearable" Computers are becoming more fact that fiction, and soon you'll be tightly integrated with them. Current viruses (virii?) nowdays do little more than send themselves out to other people, and try to infect them. However, will the Trojan Horse programs of the future be able to take over people's minds? Hmmm....sounds like an idea for a novel.

Sick of Bad News

Seems like the media is all about putting out nothing but bad news. The good news around never gets any headlines. The reaction to the economy is so emotions based that if good news were reported more often, the economy and stock market could possibly cure themselves. So I am going to start a list to only good news. If you have any good news stories, e-mail a link to me at this address.

Good news in the recent past:

Chrysler Adds 1,000 Jobs

Technology Company Addamark gets $7 million in Investments

Arkansas State Goverment Adds Jobs to High Unemployment Area

Flooring Company Adds Jobs (Webmaster of this site should be fired for bad links though)

Telecommunications Company Adds Jobs

Florida adds jobs in many areas

Blue Cross Adds Jobs

Toyota Adds 700 Jobs

That's it for now, I'm sure there are more. Send them in. The cynics among you that will say this is just a 'drop in the bucket' need not apply. Go read or watch the mainstream news for bad news....

Unbelievable

How? I just don't understand. I really don't. Someone please explain it to me. This article says it all. How in the hell are people this stupid? I can't believe it. After all of the publicity in other cases like this, how can it happen?

Some of you will try to wax eloquent about how its societies fault, that we don't take care of single mothers. That's way, way, way beyond the simple fact that this is just totally unacceptable. The article tries to spin it in a way that makes you feel sorry for the mother, and this will destroy her. Well it probably will, and it should. Dammit, I'm sick and tired of people making excuses for people who do these sort of things. A child is dead because the mother made a completely negligent and irresponsible decision.

Grrrrrr.....

Been a Longer Time

You'd have thought by now that this was dead, forgotten, and destined to join a multitude of other crap on the internet. Well, maybe the last one is right.

Everyone gets to all the fun topics before I do, and I can't think of anything new and witty to add. Maybe I need one of these to make it easy for me to type my thoughts when I am somewhere away from my computer. I love technology, and I already have a PDA. I'll probably need a newer one to take advantage of it though.

Remember playing "Freeze Tag" when you were a kid? I'm too old and slow to play now, but they have a mod out for Quake 3 that works the same way. Jump over to JunkPhreak and give it a try.

OK - Starting October 4th (the last day at my job), I will have more time to think about putting stuff up here for no one else but me to read. I should add a comments section, but I doubt it would do any good.

It's Been a Long Time

Well, almost a month since I last 'penned' anything here. Well this article has brought me out of my hibernation. Yet another case of a child being the victim of a brutal and inexplicable crime. He shit his pants, so he was beaten to death. Of course, it wasn't by his natural father - it was by his 'sitter'. The boyfriend of someone else not related to the child. Sad, sad, sad. Everyone who is directly responsible for this should be locked up forever.

Of course, one could argue that societal pressures to 'not judge' other people are also at fault. After all, people from the sort of backgrounds that these people are from are no more likely to do this than anyone else. Yeah right. I'm fed up with it.

Ahhh well, I'm just blathering incoherently. Maybe I'll come back to this when I'm not so disgusted.

James has his computer back from Dell, maybe he'll have something more interesting to say.

Father's Day Weekend Justice

Even though Father's Day is a Hallmark Holiday, invented to sell cards and gifts, there was a bit of justice served starting this weekend. You may have noticed in a previous post here that I talked about the parents that allowed their infant son to starve to death. Well, the father had his days in court, and he was found guilty on Friday. You'll notice that from the article that the boy starved over a period of 51 days before he died.

On this Father's Day, I was blessed to receiving love and attention from my two kids. I am so lucky to have them in my life, as those of you with children can understand. However, it even made it harder for me to understand how the parents of little Samuel did what they did. It leads back to the same question I asked earlier: What do you do with these kinds of people? James mentions a similar situation in one of his more recent blogs.

Right now I'm watching Star Trek Generations, on Sci-Fi channel. They are evacuating the engineering sectino to the saucer section. During the evacuation, they show children being evacuated as well. What kind of military organization would allow children on a star-ship, one that could be called into military action at any time? Make no sense to me. If I were there, I'd be more concerned about my children during an emergency than the ship. I'd be getting them to a shuttlecraft and getting them the heck out of there, ship be damned. Guess it's kind of selfish of me, but that's what I would do. The kids should be back at home, away from danger. They can get Starship experience on a Holodeck just as well on Earth.

A Right to Stupidity

Every so often in a high-profile court case, someone decides to represent themselves instead of having 'professional' counsel. I'm talking about Moussaui of course.

My question is, what's the big deal? It's pretty sad in this day and age that court procedures and rules of evidence are so convoluted and complicated that a lay person with a brain can't defend themselves. The piles of court cases and legal mumbo-jumbo is what gave us Miranda in the first place. You shouldn't have the right to an attorney, because you shouldn't need one. Of course, many of the founding fathers thought that America would evolve into a country of educated farmers and businessmen, but with the continued dumbing-down of our educational system this isn't the case for many of the young skulls full of mush who attend 'publik skoolz'. So we're kind of stuck now unless we throw a lot of the rules out, and the lawyers lobby is far too powerful to allow that to happen.

With Moussaui, it shouldn't be a big deal. He still has the right to act as his own attorney, and it will save us a lot of money in his prosecution. He won't know how to draw things out in the courts for years like many of the slimy defense attorneys do, just hoping the victims and witnesses will tire of the case and not show up anymore.

Of course this isn't going to happen in this case, even if he had OJ's defense team. However, if he did, you and I would be paying for his defense. Sure, I know, innocent until proven guilty, and you can't try someone in the press - but isn't it sad that tax payer dollars paid for his lawyers up until now?

Cheap Tech

Couple of things have happened recently that once again reminded me of just how inexpensive advanced technology is. Of course 'inexpensive' is a subjective term, but I think for what you get, computers (and parts) are incredibly affordable.

A client of mine that works out of his house tried to upgrade the memory in his system all by himself. Usually, this is not a hard thing to do, and even most beginners can do it if they take sufficient care and don't become impatient. However, it looks like he tried to jack-hammer the memory in and he cracked one of his memory slots. Ouch. Blew out his power supply as well. I have the computer up and running again on a single memory bank and a spare power supply I had laying around. When I was at his office diagnosing the problem, I told him that we would probably have to replace the motherboard, CPU, and memory. He has a Pentium III CPU, and you can't just find P3 motherboards as inexpensively as the newer ones supporting P4s and AMD chips. In fact, he could get an ECS K7S5A and Duron 950Mhz Processor for $92 before shipping. Add on an inexpensive CPU fan for $10, and $57 for 512MB of RAM and you have an almost completely new system for less than $200. I just looked at an ad for a local computer store for an 80GB hard drive for $89. Well, you're starting to get the picture. Computers have become throw-away appliances like VCRs and Stereo equipment. Cheaper to buy new than to get fixed or upgrade. Maybe James should just get a refund on his broken Dell and buy a newer, faster, and better system.

I just built myself a new computer and this makes me want to upgrade it. My youngest needs a new system as hers is becoming quite out-dated, maybe I can use these prices as an excuse.

I Just Don't Understand

I've seen a lot of terrible things in my life - the underbelly of humanity if you will, but I still cannot fathom how people can do the things they do to children. I came across this article. Made me sick to my stomach. How can you ignore the screams of your own child for so long? How could you let this happen? The article talks about the religious beliefs of the people being one of the causes. In my opinion, people who do these things in the name of their beliefs are weak-minded, if it wasn't religion, it would be something else. They have to be insane, totally insane.

One of the pillars this country was built on was religious freedom (not just freedom from religion, as some would have you believe), and I strongly support that basic right. Also, you should be able to raise your children in the way you believe best, or according to your religious beliefs. However, a line has to be draw somewhere - though who decides where the limitations are is one thing that is difficult to frame. It doesn't "take a village" to raise a child, no matter who would have you believe that, and I in no way trust government bureaucrats at any level (local, state, or federal) to make the best decision on a child's future. So what do we do? How do we stop things like what happened in Massachusetts without trampling over a persons liberty and freedoms? A hard question indeed.

Worker's Revolution

No, I'm not talking about the failed Communist movement or even Socialism, both of which have been shown to be failures - but that's a whole other story. What I'm talking about is the over-worked American worker. Downsizing by companies has the effect of separating the wheat from the chaff, but at a certain point you're throwing perfectly good wheat away.

They fired someone at work yesterday. Probably the best thing for the company and for the fired person. It however further affirmed something I have been noticing lately, especially in the IT sector. People are fed up. 60-70 hour weeks are no longer unusual, leaving people little time to have away from work, and it seems on the surface that they are working so hard and gaining so little from it. Sure, they can have four or five TVs in the house, three cars in the garage, and all kinds of material things - but there is a lack of 'life enjoyment'. I've noticed more and more people getting pissed off and leaving for other employment, or working for themselves. A scary prospect, not having that employer 'net' that gives you that paycheck every week or two. However, we need to support our extravagent lifestyles.

Now you might think that I am saying there is something wrong with material gain. There isn't - however I think the mental price people are paying to have all their 'stuff' is too high. I say that, yet I am sitting in a room in my house with 4 computers - one for each member of the family. You think that would be enough, yet I still want more. I have so much stuff I never touch, so why would I want to add to it?

I don't. In fact, I stopped buying a lot of the things I would want in the past, knowing that it would only end up in some box in the basement never to see the light of day again. But I digress...

Anyway, I see a slow movement away from the 60+ hour weeks and back to the 40 hour weeks. Away from the high-pressure but high-paying jobs back to something more sane. I've made that decision myself. Money will be secondary to having a job that is more fun and having less responsibilites. Well, maybe not less responsibility, but allowing me to have a life outside of work where I don't think about it when I'm not there.

So, if you are one of those people who work 12+ hour days and never see a weekend free, think about why you are doing what you are doing. Is it really worth the effort? Do you really think that you are going to get rich by working for someone else? Probably not. You have to take that chance and strike out on your own if you want to make it big and are willing to put in the hours. Otherwise you are just letting your current employer take advantage of you, and they would drop you like a hot potato if it would raise the company stock prices.

A Face Only A Mother Could Love

Was surfing around my usual pages, and come across this news article about Facial Recognition. Very interesting technology. In fact, my company sells digital photo identification systems to Law Enforcement organizations. There is quite a few people worried about the 'Big Brother' aspect of this technology. In fact, I agree with them in principle, but the technology is very inaccurate.

Our senior programmer, in reaction to our competition adding facial recognition to their products, did quite a bit of research into adding it to ours. This programmer is a true wizard, very strong background in mathematics, and I've always found his cognitive and logic skills without equal. He put quite a few hours into trying to create an accurate system, one even better than the current crop of systems. He even developed a mathematical formula that could be used to break a person's features down into a unique number.

Problem is, it wasn't very accurate. In fact it was so bad that he didn't even bother to add it to the main product. Didn't meet his standards of quality. Now before you go saying that maybe his standards are too high, think about the logic of facial recognition. You take a normally clear "mugshot" and compare it to some fuzzy black and white photograph through some crappy convenience store or bank video camera. They don't even come close. OK - Lets say best case scenario, you take a super-high quality high-resolution camera and place it with perfect lighting to catch people as they walk by. The camera even has the ability to instantly focus correctly based on distance to the target. You had better hope that everyone looks at the camera straight on if you want any semblance of accuracy.

Now the media jumps all over this technology as if it is perfected. Well, we all know about how accurate the media is. I mean they are always careful to check their facts and do sufficient research on something before they publish a story, right? Ha. I've still got that bridge to sell you if you believe that. I believe there is one high-profile story in the UK where it has worked, but the problem is its impossible to know how many times it has failed. Since if you can't identify the person, you don't know if they got away. Yet there will be millions spent on this technology by Government, until someone finally admits its just not good enough. Sort of like speech recognition software. In fact, this article speaks about just how bad the technology is. Note that it states that different facial expressions can fool the software.

So, I wouldn't worry about it if I was wanted for a crime, but I don't like the idea of cameras left on and recording the general public's activities. The investment needed and man-hours required for cameras to provide real security is huge compared to the results you will get. Usually its lazy Law Enforcement practices that let the bad guys get away with what they are doing. I should know, being a former Police Officer myself. To get really controversial, the big hoopla about racial profiling going on now doesn't help either. Oh boy, now I'm going to be labeled as a racial bigot and intolerant, yet this is the farthest thing from the truth when it comes to a person's national origin. To me, actions and other non-racial indicators are more accurate and effective in determining criminal intent.

Anyway, I don't want some bureaucrat or politician using my or anyone else's private actions as something to hold over our heads. We have little enough privacy as it is. This just makes it even more intolerable.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom....

Tick-tock, Tick-tock. A time bomb at work. Waiting to explode. Everybody is quitting, it's pretty sad. Such potential wasted. The president of the company finally sees what is going on, but he's not making drastic enough steps. The vice president wants to sit down and talk with me before I leave. Well, I have decided to not hold back, since I found out that he dislikes the CFO as much as everyone else.

Enough whining from this lemming, and off to the good stuff. OK - Maybe geeky stuff.

I ordered a couple of fans from MaxCooler for my overheating computer. A high speed Delta Fan. Sounds like an aircraft engine, the wife hates it. But I can feel the air blowing out of the front of the case, even though the fan is in the rear. Also, the fan when I bought it was rated at 68.5CFM, but now they list it at 80.16CFM. Muahahahaha! Feel the power. Now of course, I have to keep my music turned up to cover the noise, or wear headphones. Picked them up at the Radio Shack outlet store here in Columbus for $24.99 - They are normally $49.99 - We're dealin'! (The outlet store is next to Ricart Automotive, one of my company's clients.) Lots of neat discount stuff, at the outlet store it is the price it should be.

Installed RedHat Linux 7.3 on my laptop. A dual boot system with Windows 2K on the other partition. Works like a charm. People ask me about XP. In my opinion, its a mistake. It's just 2000 with better backwards compatibility with games, and the of course annoying registration function. I'll stick with Windows 2000 Professional for a long time, and will probably end up on Linux completely if Microsoft sticks with their current subscription model.

Anyway, now the kids are playing on Linux on my computers, my oldest, being 6.5 years old, can log in from the console prompt. Just like her Dad, she'll rule the world someday through computers. Its sad, a family of 4 with 4 computers. Mine being my new notebook system, though I'm typing this on my custom built system that my eldest now uses.

Pretty pathetic, eh? Well, the wife both hates it and likes it. She hates it because I am on the computer all the time, but likes it because I don't demand as much sex anymore since I am distracted. Not that she'd give it up anymore. I have to look into this female viagra.

He's Baaaaaack

Wow. 13 days since I last 'penned' anything here, and a lot has happened. Had a job interview today, went well. Told my employer I was seeking other employment a week or so ago. They took it well. Asked me to give 4 weeks notice if possible, due to the fact that I am a key person in almost all facets of the business.

Enough about me.

In a related note, looks like the technology industry is back on the rise again. If you know me in person, I've been predicting a rise in technology business either late this year or early next year. It appears I am right on target. How did I know? Well, it's like this, IT 'stuff' has a shelf life of about 2 years. Once it starts getting that old, its time to replace it - unless you bought 'bleeding edge' stuff to start with. Usually its just worn out, or its so out of date that newer stuff can be had that does the same job that takes up 10% of the space, costs 25% as much and runs 1000% faster. Also has more features and is probably a lot more stable.

The tech boom of the 90's was not due to the 'dot-coms', though they did contribute to it. It was the trillions of dollars that were spent around the globe on Y2K. Even the dot-coms had to spend money on Y2K upgrades. The 'dot-com' money was a drop in the bucket compared to Y2K budgets. It was as if the floodgates had opened for IT managers, and they found themselves with huge budgets to deal with Y2K. Not missing an opportunity, as they were used to being the poor stepchildren of the company when it came to handing out purchasing money, they bought, and they bought, and they bought. Bleeding edge stuff. Stuff that would only be used at 5-10% of its capacity. Routers, switches, servers, new PCs, you name it. Easier to replace with Y2K compliant items than to fix the old crap, that was their mantra.

It worked. No Y2K nastiness. However, they found themselves with a lot of equipment and a fleet of PCs that were hardly used. Now 3 years later, the stuff is old, especially the PCs. 1999 was the era of the 200-300Mhz systems. Those just won't cut it anymore. Its time to replace. So watch for the Computer OEMs to start having good profits again. I wish I had money for some stock.

Party Time!

Talked to a friend today on MSN messenger. Handy little program. Makes communications instant and un-intrusive. Anyway, looks like he has a job spot for me. Looks pretty good. I feel a lot better about things now. Funny how something like this can make things so much easier.

Going to a local Restaurant/Sports Bar tonight to watch the NASCAR race. OK you lemmings, stop chuckling. I know you think that NASCAR is for uneducated inbred rednecks, but it appeals to a wide audience. I appreciate the engineering that goes into it, and even though it looks like they are just going round and round in circles, it takes quite a bit of skill to keep those cars from wrecking into one another at speeds close to 200 mph. I mean just try to image going that speed even around your city's outerbelt (sans traffic). Now put a bunch of cars out there with you, all trying to go just as fast, some a few inches in front, a few inches behind, even bumping you from side to side, and on either side of you going into turns.

You might think you're a hot-shot driver, but its not a easy as you think. I know, I've been in a car doing 110 mph down a street on a Sunday afternoon.

Now on to Geekdom

OK Lemmings, its time to get down and dirty. I wanted a pretty decent notebook computer to haul around and do work on. I can use it when doing security and network analysis tasks. So I bought a Netlux 7321.

Can't beat it for the price. Got Windows 2000 loaded up and all my tools. Then I went to install RedHat Linux 7.2 so that with a dual-boot system I could have maximum flexibility for software selection.

Damn thing runs Windows like a champ, but Linux won't stay running for more than 15 minutes.

It was heat.

Turns out the Linux doesn't support ACPI correctly so that the power can be turned down on the CPU when it gets too hot. Therefore we have all sorts of kernel panics and the like. Too bad. I have half of the hard drive reserved for linux. Going to have to wait until the next distro release and hope they get ACPI working better...

It's Deja Dot-Com..

If you've even read this, and I know no one else has, you know I've been complaining about work. So have my other tech-co-workers. I've even seen some grousing from the sales people. Well, if you had the CFO from hell, you would too.

So anyway, we have this mandatory meeting to discuss a new opportunity for the company. All of us tech-heads about fell out of our chairs when they told us they were in effect bringing in a consulting company to sit with us while we do our jobs and help us do it even better. How insulting. You see, they think we do a shitty job, even though we do get praised from time to time. Problem is, all the guys I work with do a hell of a job, and put forth 110% effort on behalf of the customer. Management talks about how they want to do what the market tells them, but the problem is that you get so bogged down in paperwork, you end up taking too long to get the job fixed. If you just do the job and help the customer out, you get bitched at because we aren't getting paid for that type of service. Its a lose-lose proposition. Now they are going to baby-sit us. Just farking amazing. Money is always so tight, yet they waste it on headhunters and consultants. What a joke. Oh, and yes, we have those Airon chairs.

So now all the tech guys are looking for jobs. One of them said to me, "If they wanted to get rid of us, why didn't they just tell us." The sad thing is that management doesn't understand how insulting what they are doing is to all of us in the tech-side of the business.

I can't wait until May 31st. Either I find a new job by then, or I'm giving my notice and doing consulting.

Yes, this is still here. Why are you looking?

Oh look. I didn't fall off of the cliff. Neither did you. It's been a few days, and of course work rears its ugly head and gets in the way of pure recreation. After all, who wants to type inane stuff into a heap of plastic, silicon, and metal when there's so much other stuff to do, like watch Mortal Kombat on TBS.

What a sorry movie. Bad acting, bad costumes. Bad everything. Goro looked way too skinny and oh-so fake. Why am I watching it? Maybe because I have the ultimate in sensory overload. Surfing the web while watching Cable TV on my PC. Hopefully I can multitask.

Rayden is still cool.