The Workermonkey

Friday, March 31, 2006

I am conceited 

# posted by Damon @ 3/31/2006 01:14:00 PM

Ok here it is, you knew it, and I've known it for quite some time. I think I'm smart and I know a lot about many different areas and think I live a great life, so I often dispense unsolicited advice and sound like a know-it-all. Now here's a philosophical question, assume that I know I am conceited, but if that were my only flaw (it's not) and I were to rid myself of it, would I not then be perfect? And if I were perfect, how would I keep from once again becoming conceited? I hope I get more time to read Buddhist material soon, that helps.

Anyway, I just got a friend to join me skiing, so I hope Monday when we book it isn't sold out, but as long as that's not the case, we are flying up to the arctic to a ski resort called Riksgränsen, which means the border of the country, as it sits on the Norwegian line. We are going the second week in May, which should be perfect since since it's -15°C there now, there's almost 2 meters of snow and about 30 cm more on the way. Oh there are only 34 trails! Whatever, look at the pictures, there is also a lot of off piste skiing, and for a mere $250 you can go up three times in a helicopter and come down with a guide, and you can do this at midnight in the sun if you'd like. Looks sick, and I doubt I will regret missing a football game for it (though maybe I regret joining the football team since this is the season opener I am missing, and I am also missing the scrimmage the week before - again to go to the arctic in a separate trip. So maybe this will cost me a starting job that it looks like I have now, and they make you buy all the equipment and pay fees to rent the facilities and crap, I'm out about a grand!)

Happy birthday for yesterday Josh.

14 comments

Now at that time Pokkharasati had a pupil, the youth Ambattha, who was a student of the Vedas, who knew the mantras, perfected in the Three Vedas, a skilled expounder of the rules and rituals.,. complete in philosophy...

And Pokkharasati said to Ambattha: "Ambattha, my son.,. go to see the ascetic Gotama..."

And the Lord said to Ambattha: 'Ambattha you came here seeking something. Whatever it was you came for, you should listen attentively to hear about it. Ambattha, you have not perfected your training. Your conceit of being trained is due to nothing but inexperience.

'Those who were the first sages of the Brahmins, the makers and expounders of the mantras, whose ancient verses are chanted, pronouncd and collected by the Brahmins of today - whose mantras are said to be passed on to you and your teacher: yet you do not thereby become a sage or one practised in the way of a sage - such a thing is not possible.

'What do you think, Ambattha? What have you heard said by Brahmins who are venerable, aged, the teachers of teachers? Those first sages, did they enjoy themselves, well-bathed, perfumed, their hair and beards trimmed, adorned with garlands and wreaths, dressed in white clothes, indulging in the pleasures of the five senses and addicted to them, as you and your teacher do now?

'Or did they amuse themselves with women dressed up,.?

'Or did they ride around in chariots,.?

'So, Ambattha, neither you nor your teacher are a sage or one trained in the way of a sage.'

The Long Discourses of the Buddha, Ambattha Sutta: Pride Humbled
(excerpts)

By  wyldshaman, at Friday, March 31, 2006 8:09:00 PM  

I think I ought to follow Buddhism on avoiding alcohol as well.

By  Damon, at Saturday, April 01, 2006 11:35:00 AM  

...you shouldn't need to read that in a book.

By  ron, at Saturday, April 01, 2006 11:52:00 AM  

if being conceited were your only flaw, yet you did nothing about it, then i dont think it would be your only flaw. however, imagine it was your only flaw, and you did rid yourself of it, thus becoming "perfect." i dont think that someone who is truly "perfect" would become conceited, but rather tehy would be humble. then again, this is the trait i imagine the perfect being having. we could argue over what the perfect being was all day.

is there an objective perfect being, or just subjective perfect beings? and if there is an objective perfect being, could we or anyone else, being imperfect, ever know what its like? would this objective perfect being be any different from some common conceptions of god?

i personally dont find any scripts from organized or official religions helpful. i think the best thing you can do is look inside yourself at what you want to obtain, as your own perfect being. then look at yourself, and see how/what you need to change. what would you like to be different about you? what are your strong points? what are your weak ones?

there is always room for self-improvement. these ideas are merely suggestions. its just my way of doing things, when i want to reexamine myself and become a better person. hopefully it provides some guidance, help, or at least triggers some thoughts. or maybe its just amusing. after all, its MY subjective way, not an objective one.

By  josh, at Saturday, April 01, 2006 2:50:00 PM  

Of course what makes a perfect being is subjective and I think we all strive toward our subjective image of that being. So when we tell stories on here, maybe they sound better to some and worse to others. Like as I get better in my mind, I think I'm just lame in some of yours. And when every now and then Murhpy tells us what he's up to, I have no doubt that is great fun for him, and a lot of people would love to be doing that as well, but it's nowhere near what I want to do. So kinda like I said I think I'm living a great life, but I would think most people should be able to say that. If you value fitness, you do it, if you value casual sex, you do it, if you value intellect, you read and study or whatever.

By  Damon, at Saturday, April 01, 2006 5:06:00 PM  

i think that while the perfect person might be subjective, i'm not sure that whatever someone values is an attribute of their perfect person. to say so seems to say that no one could ever act against their conscience. it seems that the perfect person would only have attributes that one had in good conscience, so could someone never do anything they really thought was wrong/towards the imperfect? to put it another way, wouldn't this mean that it wouldnt be possible to act against what we thought was good?

maybe an example would help. say i like slapping hos, and strive to slap as many hos as possible. if most people should be able to say they're living a great life when they do what they strive to do, could i then say that by slapping lots of hos i'm living a great life? i would argue no, because there are battery laws against slapping hos.

but maybe politicians were wrong to enact those laws? are they subjecting the public to their subjective view of the perfect person? in some circumstances this seems absolutely to be the case, but what about things like laws against murder? i think most people would agree that living a murderous life would not be living a perfect one, but what about people who strive to kill (e.g. hitler)? should we allow them to pursue what they view as a perfect life? do we take a utilitarian approach? or maybe there are just some objective minimum standards out there that one must have to be perfect?

By  josh, at Saturday, April 01, 2006 6:10:00 PM  

thats a nice pic damon. You are an intelligent person but the idea that anyone can achieve perfection is not conceited its just arrogant. There is always something you dont know, something that someone else is better at.

The fact that you are entertaining the idea of being perfect is a little rediculous because no one is. Your realize your flaws and try to fix them but ridding yourself of all flaws is a flaw in itself dont you think. Be humble know what you know and try to learn more on what you dont. but you will never be perfect.

Looks like some sweet ski terrain

By  murphy, at Saturday, April 01, 2006 6:46:00 PM  

I think perfection is a limiting idea, if not also a vague one.

Why strive for perfection? I just try to keep myself happy.

By  ron, at Saturday, April 01, 2006 8:13:00 PM  

Ron and Murphy, the perfection part to this discussion is philosophical, has nothing to do with me.

Josh, your ho-slapper would in their view be living their life as they see it best. But they would go to jail because most people can agree that ho-slapping in not a good ideal to aspire to in life.

Just because ideals are subjective and vary doesn't mean we can't have laws and norms. There is some agreement as to what a good life entails, and what people should not be allowed to do regardless of their subjective idea of a perfect being. But it is also clear the illegal is not synonymous with wrong. Well that is a whole different discussion, and right/wrong wasnt' the point anyway. Josh's initial comment was really the discussion I was looking for in the original post.

By  Damon, at Saturday, April 01, 2006 11:45:00 PM  

This discussion has exceeded my capacity to care. I don't even know what the talk is about. Achieving perfection? fixing flaws? being conceited?

By  ron, at Sunday, April 02, 2006 10:08:00 PM  

I make a motion to end all comments on this post. Seconds?

By  Brancibeer, at Sunday, April 02, 2006 11:00:00 PM  

damon, this is partially why i created my blog. i enjoy the discussion, and invite you to spark similar conversations on my blog if you wish.

By  josh, at Monday, April 03, 2006 12:00:00 PM  

I second the notion to end comments because it seems only Josh is fully understanding me. Just to sum up, I know I am conceited and arrogant. I am trying to remind myself to listen more carefully to others, to deliberately consider their view, and respond only if I have something useful to them. This is just one of many faults I have. I did enjoy some parts of the debate on a perfect being though. That is only an idea, but I think each person probably has an ideal version of themselves in mind and should strive toward it. But no one can ever reach it, and of course there is no perfect being outside our individual minds.

By  Damon, at Monday, April 03, 2006 2:02:00 PM  

Sorry guys, i was being sarcastic. I blame it on this website format...its confusing and detrimental to having meaninful conversations. Its like a monkey designed it.

By  Brancibeer, at Tuesday, April 04, 2006 4:30:00 PM  

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Thursday, March 30, 2006

pure rock fury 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 3/30/2006 08:15:00 AM

saw a sweet show at the webster last night with mills. Sevendust and Nonpoint rocked that place. i think we got as drunk as physically possible in 20 minutes and stumbled over. he lives close enough that we left when we heard nonpoint take the stage and we cought the end of the first song. i sweated through my pants. it was awsome. today, i can't hear anything and i'm still running on adrenelin right now, i expect the crash around 10 o'clock today. 3-4 hours of drunk rock sleep doesn't cut it.

god i love that monkey pic. Good work.

3 comments

update; well the crash happened at 10:45, i walked around the shop and bumped into a tank and now i have a headache. totally worth it.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:46:00 AM  

When I saw Local H and uh, someone else at The Webster, my hearing was messed for two or three days, it was the loudest show I've heard. That place is awesome and some of my favorite shows have been there, but I don't believe it needs to be that loud. The only time I didn't regret drinking too much during a concert (usually I am mad because I don't remember the show at all, like the 2 Skinnee J's boat cruise, where I am told everyone got off the boat except Ron and I, three girls that Ron and I were hooking up with, and the J's, all of whom I supposedly talked with for quite some time while the boat went around from the west side of Manhattan to the east, before we walked back across the island to Ron's car.) was a free alchohol-free show at PSU, where we lived across the street and downed six beers in 45 minutes then got blissfully wasted (and had to piss like you wouldn't believe) on the walk there, but had none of the ill effects that come with long night of drinking.

By  Damon, at Thursday, March 30, 2006 1:14:00 PM  

nice title, I havent read that guy in awhile.

By  ron, at Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:30:00 PM  

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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

# posted by josh @ 3/28/2006 06:59:00 PM

i dont know about the first one, but the second one is kind of how i picture matt

4 comments

that picture is perfect. maybe have a cigarette burning in an ashtray next to him. nice work

By  murphy, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 8:03:00 PM  

agreed. is it licensed?

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 8:32:00 PM  

i dont believe so

By  josh, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:40:00 PM  

its like money in the bank

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Wednesday, March 29, 2006 8:21:00 AM  

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Possible monkey mascots 

# posted by Damon @ 3/28/2006 10:02:00 AM

Here's two cool monkeys. The evil one from Family Guy might more fit the workermonkey persona, but the Super Troopers one is chill, laid back, and smokes, so who knows. Anyway, I am sure they are both protected and I was not allowed to post them like this so we'd have to check into that more to use one.

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Monday, March 27, 2006

# posted by DJ Booze Piñata @ 3/27/2006 10:28:00 PM

ah that's better

7 comments

Viva! Los Monkey! HEyeah!

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 27, 2006 11:19:00 PM  

Cool, we look like a band or something, but why the orange circle? I suppose using the family guy monkey back there is both illegal and irrelevent since he is not multipurpose nor a worker.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:31:00 AM  

I don't like it. No monkeys anywhere. It's too much like a corporate logo. It's all fake and plasticky. We need to have some reality in our image.

By  NoBrainRequired, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 7:51:00 AM  

does anyone know where we can get a monkey? and a camera. i'm sure we can find a cubical. we'll get some shots of the monkey banging at the keyboard and swinging a cup of coffee.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 8:08:00 AM  

Yeah, this wasn't intended as any kind of final product. My initial idea was to have a coffee cup with a monkey on it, plus a couple of cogs/gears spinning off his shoulder. Also: a beenie baby monkey or some stupid-looking doll-ape kind of draped over a coffee cup, then closely cropped and blurred in photoshop. Maybe even one of those monkeys from lego sets.

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 8:24:00 AM  

Yeah I like the text, but I am sure we are giving the feedback you wanted, not the praise (yet.) The bottom of the 's' is cut off, and what about the monkey logo from Super Troopers, since it's already kinda pornographic, maybe you could work your other ideas into his banana he's grabbing.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:02:00 AM  

I'm not a big fan either, but i'm happy to see some effort. Hey, now that i think of it...i may have some pictures of monkeys. I'll take a look.

By  Brancibeer, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:19:00 AM  

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ProMOtion! 

# posted by DJ Booze Piñata @ 3/27/2006 07:39:00 PM

So in tandem with my duties as House Roll Call Clerk (a temporary position until May,) I'll be a Legislative Aide (a permanent position,) meaning essentially that I'll be doing much scheduling, mailing, and constituent responses on behalf of three different state representatives. This is what I've been shooting for over the past few years, so I'm pleased as punch about it. It actually just means I'm someone else's bitch, but a step in the right direction IS a step in the right direction, after all. My boss actually called the pace of my rise "meteoric". I prefer "cumtastic" but I won't split hairs. Come this summer, I'll be directing several democratic campaigns, and as of next week I'm getting my own interns, too. Thank goodness I've got a girlfriend - happy hours would wind up disastrous, otherwise.

"Yeah! I gots umpthin ...*urp!*... you could do to me! FOR me, I mean! I....I'm sorry."

Anyways, that'll eventually start occupying my nights and weekends. But not yet! So in the meantime, of course, I've been learning how to use Macromedia Flash and Adobe Photoshop. I haven't gotten to the chapters on animation yet, but I made this just the other day...

nevermind..photoserver just ain't right today

9 comments

Congratulations on the cumtastic rise (meteors fall burning to the ground in big craters, how can your rate of rise be meteoric?)

Sounds like you are gathering momentum for a '08 run?

I just checked back on your website and like the songs you added sometime in the last 6 months or so. Thugtales is funky, I like the melody, but it's so short.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:52:00 AM  

congrats macunas! i was one of those interns during the semester b/w colby and jmu...good times. its not a bad job, enjoy it!

By  josh, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:58:00 AM  

Awesome! Yes yes...now we have you in politics, and friend in the police department making his way up the ranks...things are coming together just as planned.

Just one question: Do the interns get glocks?

By  Brancibeer, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:02:00 AM  

quite you FOOL! you'll ruin everything!

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 1:22:00 PM  

Who is in the police? Jared is in the Capitol Police and has to carry a gun 24/7.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 2:45:00 PM  

petrulis is a middletown cop now

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 3:42:00 PM  

Jared's in OUR Capitol Police?

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 4:04:00 PM  

No, the Capitol as in DC. I don't think it's confidential, but it leads to (and he may have moved up by now) Senator protection and, and...something else, like Secret Service I think. So now I wonder who'd win in a fight, him or the desk jockies I know at the CIA and NSA?

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 29, 2006 2:16:00 PM  

Well the real question is if he gets a tazer like Petrulis. Up here we call Cap Police the Palace Guard, jokingly when we want to be funny.

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Thursday, March 30, 2006 8:26:00 AM  

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Ok, so i'll post something 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 3/27/2006 04:21:00 PM

spring funk. anyone else get it? it seems like every spring i get into some kind of funk, like my body and mind start arguing about how to prepare for the summer, or one is exausted from the long winter or maybe it has something to do with the alignment of the stars, i dont' know. All i know is that it comes on slow in the beginning of march and runs a month or so and i kind of act a little wierd. i can't explain it, at least not with out sounding too nuts. i managed to avoid it last year because i was doing things that threw both body and mind off track. i spent the month of february on the road with murphy, went to spring training for a week in FLA and had previously been outside the country before that. all those things at once kind of made it feel like i never had a winter. This year it's been back to the old grid of work so i've been present through it all.
i've been reading stuff online about what it is i think is wrong with me and from what i can tell it might be as simple as a lack of sunshine due to the winter. What i read said that over the winter your body would "dig into the well" for the vitamins and stuff you get from the sun and its this time of year when you start to run out so you start to feel strange and stuff. i've also read it could be as simple as taking a suppliment called 5-HTP. Or it could be a lack of sleep, seasonal depression, some kind of hormone i've never heard of, a lack of protein before bed (i have no clue how this one works), or a million other things that would slightly explain everything. it could also be a combination of all of these things. Or maybe i'm just a big pussy.
i've been eating healthier for a while now i guess, and i've been getting more regular exercise for the last two months. Next step is to cut back on drink and smoke. but by the time i'm done with that, i maybe out of the funk for other reasons. this is what happens, i'm over it or forget about it before anything i do could really have helped. if i'm nuts and they put me on pills, it could be a month before i feel the effects, by which time i'm back to normal anyway.
for now i'll just wear a sign on my back that says "do not feed the crazy" and hope people get it.

see what happens when no one posts?

7 comments

well, thats why i got my blog going...you guys were sick of the law posts, but i post fairly regularly, just to keep people entertained, even if minimally so.

i get that funk too. i think its most likely cuz winter sucks. i've never heard anyone say that spring, summer, or fall went too long or lasted forever, but every year people say that about winter. the 20th was officially the first day of spring, but nothing about this is spring-like. its cold and crappy out still. i know there's all that sciency crap behind it, but i say we push back the official first day of spring. if i didnt think spring was coming until april 15, then i might be ok for the extra few weeks. also, that would put tax season completely in the winter...winter sucks anyway, so who would notice?

this is getting long and tangential. i'll stop now.

By  josh, at Monday, March 27, 2006 5:04:00 PM  

take off the skirt eh?

You probably have seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It pretty common for people like us who hole themselves up in an office all day. You should do what I do. Listen to The Cure non-stop, and enjoy being a cynical bastard.

We gots to get barone here a girl. Or a bike. either or both will take care of any free time spent feeling down.

By  ron, at Monday, March 27, 2006 7:19:00 PM  

You've just been hanging out with your roommate too long.

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Monday, March 27, 2006 7:39:00 PM  

its not so much feeling down. its just a funk, i guess its like stuff doesn't seem right, or i'm not used to warm weather again. i don't know, it just knocks me off balance a little.

yes, i do enjoy being a cynical bastard, and i think i'm kind of good at it. i cought myself at work the otherday being overly sarcastic. to myself, it wasn't a big deal but i realized that maybe the people i work with don't ever really see me when i'm not. i get kind of pissy in the office when people have stupid arguments which i can solve in 3 seconds. today it was about how many parts we send a customer. one guy said we were shipping the right amount, the other guy said we weren't making enough. it was in our production meeting, so i stopped them both and said, "wait a minute, they are paying us for X amount right? why don't we just build X and give it to them, because our paperwork is messed up it shoudn't mean we screw these guys on a delivery." they both stopped talking and we moved on. fucking rick.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 27, 2006 7:44:00 PM  

Winter is sweet. Even in Sthlm where the sun sets at 2:45pm in Dec. and there is still more than 6 inches of snow on the ground. On the other hand, it sucks because my football team is still practicing indoors. Anywho your funk sounds odd, aren't most people feeling quiet chipper when the warm weather comes? Then again you say stuff doesn't seem right, well stuff isn't right.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:37:00 AM  

most people get in a funk in winter if there is nothing to do, cabin fever or some shit. keep on keeping on, and find some nice but easy girl to take the nuts to for a while. Your so money and you dont even know it!

By  murphy, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 1:46:00 AM  

Spring makes me horny, but i think thats natural.

And im looking forward to daylight-switch-the-times-around thing. As i get up with the sun, the whole 5:40am thing is not working. I think id sleep alot in winter if i lived in old Sweden, but summer would get a little crazy, as im sure it does there.

By  wyldshaman, at Tuesday, March 28, 2006 7:53:00 AM  

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Saturday, March 25, 2006

Coming and Going in Sunny Califor nigh ey 

# posted by murphy @ 3/25/2006 01:51:00 PM

How you boys doing? I couldnt be better, California was sweet. Got to visit with Flores, Joe, Kayte, Hank and Sara and of course the Teen Wolf. Quite a change of scenery coming from the MTs of montana to the big city living of San Diego. People are a lot of fun but a little faster paced than im used to. I think i live in the most laid back area of the US. Spent the first week in SD boozin hard, going to the beach, seeing sights, boozin, smoking a shit load of cali green goodness and a couple nights of Karokee-humpty dance resurected, thats right.

met a lot of cool people and had a lot of fun with everyone, at a lot of sea food and mexican. And a lot of mexican food to ahhhahhahahahahahah.

Me and tino rented a car and drove from SD to San Fran. Spent a night there, drove past Sacremento to a town called Auburn. A couple of tino's buddies from CIA, cooking school, ran a winebar/restaurant there and we have a couple of nights of the high life. Four star food and drink and was all compted except for a bottle of champagne we bought after. We closed the place and the owner came back and smoked cigars with us, popped a bottle of 70 dollar champagne and let us go to town. Living the high life in nor cal.

Drove back down to San Fran, did the tourist thing, met up with Courtney and she took us out. Stayed at her place in San Jose that night. Decided to spend the next day with her and her roommate in Santa Cruz and tore it up. The four of us spent the day drinking at this beachside bar and grill from like 3-8pm. more and more friends of courtneys came until we took over the entire porch area of the bar. As the sun set we ripped a few bowls of this good weed, we met this kid who was a card carrying canabis user and gave us some name brand govt. shit.

High as Fuck!

Went down the block to a sushi place, everyone was eating except me because i had to drink. We did sake bombs and pissed off everyone in the place. Sake Bomb, pint glass 1/2 full of sapporro beer, fill one shot of sake, japanese rice wine. Place 2 chop sticks on rim of pint glass and gently perch shot ontop of the chopsticks. Sing the sakebomb song and then everyone slams the table very hard-shot falls in beer-you pound beer and rice wine. Get fucked up.

you can imagine how many times we did this in a row and how much of a disturbance it made, but people were more laughing at us than anything else. crashed a Courtney's again that night.

Cruised down the Orange County the next night and met up with stepbrother and sister for a couple of beers and good times, shot down to San Diego for a couple of more nights and one more Kareokee. Boom shakalaka.

DJ interlude-Hey Muthafucka Get Laid Get Fucked.

Back to 'work' in MT and everything is cool, working on some solid night moves, cougars on my tail, women do hit their sexual peak at 35 right. Ill let you know how it turns out.

I love and miss all of you retards keep on keepin on

Ill be home next fall, until then you stay classy

2 comments

Sounds cool man. Hopefully i'll be coming to visit you soon. I also enjoy the older woman. As long as they are not crazy....crazy is bad.

~Team

By  Brancibeer, at Saturday, March 25, 2006 6:37:00 PM  

how many times do i have to tell you branciteam, their all crazy-some just hide it better than others, besides it keeps things interesting if your woman is a little nuts. You never know whats comin next.

By  murphy, at Saturday, March 25, 2006 8:04:00 PM  

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Friday, March 24, 2006

Hospital asks Jesus to change name 

# posted by Damon @ 3/24/2006 01:23:00 AM

Published: 23rd March 2006 09:00 CET

Bosses at a Stockholm hospital have asked a nurse called Jesus to change his name, after concerns that it might cause confusion among patients.

According to Jesus, an auxiliary nurse at Huddinge hospital, his superiors were worried that patients told "Jesus will be coming soon ," might get the wrong idea.

"If they thought that Jesus was coming they might believe that they were already dead," the nurse told The Local.

Jesus, who will now use his middle name Manuel, said he didn't have a problem with the change.

"I understand why they wanted me to use my middle name," he said.

But, he added, "my name never usually causes me problems."

The Local

In other news, Saab is developing a hybrid that runs on E85 ethanol and would emit less than 20% the carbon dioxide than does the Prius. Also Peugeot - Citroen is working on a diesel hybrid that gets 70 mpg in mixed driving. Both cars are expected to be available for sale in 2010.

Also as of yesterday 5 birds have been found in central Sthlm that had the H5 strain of the bird flu. In 2 more in southern Sweden, it was confirmed to be the version that is potentially fatal for people H5N1. I live 1.3 miles from where the birds were found, but so far the attempts to slow the spread have not affected people here.

4 comments

Jesus is Coming!

By  Anonymous, at Friday, March 24, 2006 7:47:00 AM  

Ha ha! How about, "Only Jesus can help you now sir"

By  Brancibeer, at Friday, March 24, 2006 9:15:00 AM  

hahahaha, or, "sorry, jesus isnt working today. but russell will do ya right!"

By  josh, at Friday, March 24, 2006 9:41:00 AM  

"Jesus wants a sample of your blood"

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Saturday, March 25, 2006 4:06:00 PM  

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Thursday, March 23, 2006

Rain day 

# posted by Brancibeer @ 3/23/2006 09:53:00 AM

Well I was supposed to take the boat out today to survey one of our offshore islands, but the rain put an end to that. I did have a nice day yesterday though. I surveyed 2 beautiful beaches on the ATV. It was one of those days where I took my time and said “fuck it” to all the work left piling up at the office. “Screw you guys, I’m going to look for birds on the beach is this magnificent weather!” And I did. I finished early too, which gave me some time to have a sit down lunch on a picnic table overlooking a dune lake (very rare btw). Remembering that Chumps sister is here for spring break…I decided to give her a call. I realized that her hotel was actually on my way back to the office. So why not! I pulled out the classic 'Branci-swing-by' from the Branci-archive and said hi to the Chumpette. We caught up for about 20 mins talking about the usual BS. Same ole Chumpette I suppose. Still playing the mom character to the 5 frat boys she is sharing a room with. Yes, 5 frat boys. But hey…she’s not my sister!

Now it feels like a lazy Thursday. I suppose I should get some office work done here while I can. At the moment things are going allll right.

Pics- The birds I'm looking for (I can't take credit for this photo). And one of my new roomates:

11 comments

good to hear things are going well!

By  josh, at Thursday, March 23, 2006 11:35:00 AM  

haven't you heard of "half naked Thursday"???? c'mon, show a little skin!

By  JLee, at Thursday, March 23, 2006 5:23:00 PM  

or make your roommate...or somebody for crying out loud.

By  JLee, at Thursday, March 23, 2006 5:24:00 PM  

Skin = sin. Didn't yo' preacher-man teach you anyting?

I wish my job involved "getting in the boat." But hey, I get to pretend I'm a Congressional member when I write to constituents. I tried checking the box "Member of General Assembly" on my jury duty form, but they got me anyways. I now know "staff" is different from "member". Let's give it another decade.

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Thursday, March 23, 2006 5:28:00 PM  

I've heard of Thirsty Thursday, Jlee, but i thought the skin was shown on Boobie Tuesdays!

By  Brancibeer, at Thursday, March 23, 2006 10:30:00 PM  

So... Which one is your roommate?

Boobie Tuesday? What about whip 'em out Wednesday!

By  d$, at Thursday, March 23, 2006 10:58:00 PM  

And I was doubting that we had the visitors to make money off porn.

By  Damon, at Friday, March 24, 2006 1:41:00 AM  

It's all about the networking damon.

By  Brancibeer, at Friday, March 24, 2006 9:13:00 AM  

if it has boobs, they will come.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Friday, March 24, 2006 9:23:00 AM  

I want to see all you guys participate in Massive Cock Monday. If you do, maybe we ladies will give you a little Wide Open Wednesday... ;)

By  sadielady, at Friday, March 24, 2006 10:46:00 AM  

We may be able to work out some kind of deal.

By  Brancibeer, at Friday, March 24, 2006 11:49:00 AM  

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Wednesday, March 22, 2006

update rpl 

# posted by ron @ 3/22/2006 09:44:00 PM

I took a look at the blogger today and realized that aside from a few comments, I hadn’t posted in over a month. Well, I’m finally setting aside some time to write a proper post.

Girl:

I’m back in the girlfriend club dating a girl I knew about up at Uconn and am getting to know now. She’s blazing hot and has a progressive attitude. I know, I know she hasn’t been around to meet anyone. I usually see her only one day on the weekend and I’m selfish about it. She’s busy with all sorts of grad schoolwork; blah blah blah I got a ton of excuses.

Job:

I must say that the new job is awesome. I’m on my 6^th week. The start of my job correlates well with my lack of blog postings for good reason. I use a computer for 9-10 hours a day. That is my entire job. If the work wasn’t defense related and I had a fast connection I could probably do it all from home. Well, not really because I need help with things and meetings. But in theory those could be done over the web also. The HR department is in India and communication with them is IM or email. It works pretty well for any issues I’ve had so far. Anyway back to the actual substance of my job. I do computer simulations of aerospace components. You can bet on the next US super fighter will have some of my work in it. I’m not too proud of defense work but it pays (and quite well, to brag a little). We do all sorts of commercial engine work also, and some non-aerospace stuff too. Make no mistake about it, jet engines are awesomely complex machines that, since learning more about them, blow my mind.

The concept is awesome in scope, although not a new one. Take a computer drawing, tell me what its made out of (or planning to be made out of) and I’ll tell you where it may break. The cost savings of eliminating countless prototypes is tremendous. I’m currently using a program called LS-Dyna. Its an explicit finite element solver used to model complex dynamics. It’s the same program used to model car crashes. My current model is nothing near as complex as that but I’ve only been on the project 4-5 weeks. I wake up every morning thinking about the model, the contact options, how the model is built and how to quickly check all aspects of it before running a final case.

I have one complaint: TRAFFIC. I get in usually at 8 that means battling 9N Middletown, and 91N at rush hour. It sucks a big fatty. I can’t convince myself to get up earlier. It seems like a total craps shoot on whether you will get stuck in traffic or not. I even get stuck on 81 at the high school sometimes at that fucking light when school starts at 7:15-20. Leaving is no better because 9S Middletown is a fucking genius piece of work, so I stay until 5:30 or 6 daily (9-9.5 hour days). I get straight pay for overtime and I like what I’m doing so I’m fine with it for now. We’ll see about it when the bike riding whether comes about. .

With most of my time devoted to the above new entities, I’m doing the usual of riding, drinking and reading. If you count today’s home computer usage of personal web surfing, browsing for an apartment and typing this post, I’ll have been looking a screen for over 12 hours today. I’m beginning to think I’m a computer, or just a drunken monkey typing away spurting out blog posts and stress plots.

2 comments

What is the name of the company you work for? Where are they? You work on engine parts or any components? I imagine you do mostly defense because commercial carriers can't afford FEA on their engine designs.

You have to leave by 7:05. That will get you past the school with no problem, and should make backup in Middletown minimal. 91 might still be slow, but the difference is amazing between leaving at 7 and 7:15. Even earlier is even better.

Sounds like things are going pretty well, man. Cool. But 40 hours a week is plenty, don't give them more at the regular rate, especially sitting in front of a pc all day, you'll mess up your eyes if not your head. If you work 9 hour days could you take every other Friday off?

By  Damon, at Thursday, March 23, 2006 12:18:00 AM  

Yes. You now truly a WM.

By  Brancibeer, at Thursday, March 23, 2006 1:26:00 PM  

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# posted by wyldshaman @ 3/22/2006 08:20:00 AM

THE GLOBAL OIL PROTECTION SERVICE
Wants You!

3 comments

Today after class a Canadian friend told me she always thought of me and felt bad when the lecturers continually trash the US for being a world leader in wealth, energy consumption, and pollution of every kind. And while I agree that the US is awful in that respect, and I am not the one who needs to hear this sort of thing, I could sometimes be found going for a drive just for something to do when I was in high school and gas was $0.97 a gallon. The lecture mentioned war for oil several times.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 22, 2006 10:21:00 AM  

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By  ron, at Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:59:00 PM  

It should say, "I WANT YOUR OIL"

or, "How did you're country get ontop of my oil field?"

I say burn it all up, the sooner the better. The free market will prevail.

By  ron, at Wednesday, March 22, 2006 10:00:00 PM  

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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Michael Bolton, Speaker of the House, and...who's that stupid redhead? 

# posted by DJ Booze Piñata @ 3/21/2006 09:47:00 PM

During the last House assembly the crooner himself got the "Connecticut's Finest" award for his philanthropy. The actual award itself is this cool orb/gyroscope-looking whatchahoozie. The CT resident has given $3 million through his various charities, mostly for causes relating to battered women and such. Someone in my office said "He probably batters women all the time. He just gives money to cover it up."

3 comments

Hey, that redhead looks very astute, interested, and awake. Somethings going on.... you must have either been on aderol or stronger. Coffee maybe?

"Michael Bolton! Wow, is it really him? OMG! OMG!"

Did you yell out any requests?

Cool though. Glad to see you lookin spiffy.

By  Brancibeer, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 11:16:00 PM  

excellent work, macunas. i celebrate your whole collection.

By  josh, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 11:24:00 PM  

oddly enough, you look more excited to be there then michael bolton.

i'm sure that in the past i've made numerous death threats about this man and i'm sure at some point i've thought that i'd punch a guy like him in the face if ever presented with the opertunity ot meet him. You must have felt the urge to leap across the podium and nail him square in the jaw. come on.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Wednesday, March 22, 2006 10:20:00 AM  

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nfl commish 

# posted by josh @ 3/21/2006 10:39:00 AM

so, i have a question that 1 or 2 of you are probably better prepared to answer than i am. i was watching sportscenter this morning, and they went thru the normal candidates, owners/general managers currently in the game, etc, but then they said something that blew me out of the water. they reported, somewhat disjunctively and randomly, that, if offered to her, condoleeza rice would probably have to turn down the job right now as she has more political stuff she wants to accomplish first. my question is, did i totally miss something, or is the whole world just going mad?

5 comments

Yeah you missed something, 2008 will see America's first woman prez, as the ballot will be Clinton vs Rice. Now what will the extreme right do!? Vote green?

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 12:25:00 PM  

i'd love to see that ticket because clinton would clean up. republicans hate women and black people, how the hell are they going to vote for a black woman? If we had another crazy rich texan like ross perot, all the southern white folk would vote for him while the southern colored folk would vote for hte only black canidate they've ever scene. divide and concour.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 1:24:00 PM  

Of course I'd love the events to fall as Matt describes, but even if dividing the vote didn't directly help the left, I think we'd be better off with more parties. I also think a substaintial amount of people would relate better to third parties than the two major, similar, corrupt, and idealess major ones, but they either don't know about them or are afraid to "waste their vote." It would be great if we ended up with two major parties and two significant third parties after the 2008 election. Maybe the extreme right Matt mentioned could vote for the Constitution party, and the left who aren't sure about Clinton's redneck past (sorry that's a reference to a Ben Folds song, but I am talking about Wal-Mart) will have to vote Green. And of course I think a lot of Americans could dig the Libertarians.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 1:54:00 PM  

yeah i dont think the problem is that we need more parties...i think we have plenty.

i can see both sides of the "wasting a vote" idea. i can easily see where people would feel their vote is wasted if they dont vote for one of the 2 major parties, but at the same time maybe there just isnt enough support. perhaps those who are in the minority parties just feel/speak so loudly that they seem overrepresented. part of me thinks if so many people really felt this way there would be more order and organization among these parties.

or maybe lots of people do feel that way but its just that americans are a bunch of lazy assholes. seems very plausible to me.

By  josh, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 4:25:00 PM  

The 2 party system we have is a systemic problem. We need to change our government to a more democratic one, like a Parlimentary system. The elections are almost rigged, just look at how they changed voting districts in TX. With all or nothing voting, such that we have, 3rd parties just dont exist, how can they? Votes for them are "wasted."

In a Parlimentary system of equal representation, if the Green party gets 1% of the vote, 1% of Parliment is Green, if the Libertarians get 2%, 2% of Parliment is Libertarian.

Bla.. Bla.. Bla..

By  wyldshaman, at Wednesday, March 22, 2006 7:55:00 AM  

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Monday, March 20, 2006

For the love of god; somebody write something 

# posted by Brancibeer @ 3/20/2006 04:34:00 PM

Impatient? Me? Naaaa. More like anxious. Don't you hate it when you know what the hell is wrong with you, and you know how to correct the problem, but you still can't do anything about it? We are strange strange creatures. Sometimes i think that our brains are too advanced for our own good. We dont have enough control over them. If we had enough control...we could tell it what to do. For instance: I know that I have anxiety problems....well..ok. I need to calm the fuck down and relax. I need to realize that the world is not going to end, that i am going to wake up the next day and perform like a human being just the same as i did every other day in my life. I can tell myself these things, they sound good, they sound right. But why cant I incorporate them? Why cant i hold them to be true and accept them. My anxiety is making me more anxious. It kinda pisses me off. Of course when you really sit down and think about it that anxiety is stemming from a couple sources. Homesickness, loss, stress. But even then, i should be able to do something about it right? If i see where the leak is, can i not plug that leak? What the fuck!

8 comments

Brian's shopping list this year:

orange stars
yellow moons
green clovers
blue diamonds
purple horseshoes
red balloons
trees for arbor day

I hope that this helps you

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Monday, March 20, 2006 8:11:00 PM  

It doesnt, but whatever you were smoking when you wrote that might.

By  Brancibeer, at Monday, March 20, 2006 11:15:00 PM  

have a beer...until your anxiety is gone...and then your mind will follow.

By  JLee, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 12:55:00 PM  

hey we've got converts! howdy.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 1:25:00 PM  

Yeah and she's pretty too. I do hope the advice could help Brancy, but it'd kill me. The way I avoid anxiety is just keeping things in perspective. In a long term and broad view, there is hardly any one event that can be considered important enough to cause the least bit of stress.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 1:41:00 PM  

In all honesty, drugs and alcohol dont help...they increase the problem.

Well, ok, sometimes they help.

By  Brancibeer, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 2:10:00 PM  

You're having anxiety in real life, ok, that explains it. Next time you start to question your exaltation with me, branci, just email me ... I'll let you know when I'm kidding and when I'm not.

(p.s. drugs and alcohol help, too...)

By  sadielady, at Tuesday, March 21, 2006 2:50:00 PM  

hang in there buddy, deep breaths...

... keep holding it.....

....long, deep bingers will supress all activity.

By  ron, at Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:54:00 PM  

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As the fore most expert on such topics around here.. 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 3/20/2006 11:35:00 AM

i'd like to throw my two sense in about the movie "V for Vendetta" which i saw yesterday and read a while back. Quck background; V was written by a famous comic writer named Alan Moore who wrote this story in the 80's during the cold war. Like most of Moores stuff it didn't catch on right away but became a classic very quickly. Moore is kind of nuts, He's a firm believer in magic and some other strange sudo-sciences but very smart none the less. He's also written other great works such as The Watchmen, From Hell, League of Extrodonary Gentelmen, Batman; The Killing Joke and many others. Most of Moores work is owned by DC comics where it was first published, and now Time/Warner owns the whole lot. Moore never expected the kind of movie/liscening deals that could have been struct for his work because he never really wanted to see them as movies or TV shows. He believed his comics were the first and last medium these stories would appear in because thats the medium he chose to tell them with. He signed a contract with DC decades ago, giving them the movie right to his stories until his books were out of print, at which time the rights would revert back to him and the artists who drew the books. Well, DC wasn't real cool with that so they've just kept his books in constant printings to hold on to the right. its just a bonus that they happen to be good and sell.
"V for Vendetta" isn't the first adaptation of Moores work for the big screen. From Hell was i think the first and he hated it. Everyone loves Alans work, but he hates the things he does to them. From hell wasn't so bad, it was fairly accurate to the text, but off by enough to soure Moore on Hollywood. His next baby, League of Extrodonary Gentalmen, was horrific. They took his nice little work, and shit all over it. It was a bad script, conbiuned with bad movie making and too much money, plus someone had to kidnap sean connery to get him to appear in it. (odd aside, connery re-edited the movie after it was completed himself because he was embarassed by it, his version was released to the theaters (that's hollywood power for ya)).
Alan Moore has been so pissed off at DC and hollywood, he's demanded that they take his name off of any of his work that the produce. He's even refused to take the royalties given to him for the stories that have been adapted. He istead gives the money to the artist who drew the books.
V was made by the Wochowski brothers who did the Matrix movies. they tried to get Alan Moore to help with the movies production and help with the script because they know of his story and why he's so pissed about this stuff. Moore refused to help and did not give the movie his blessing, he's been burned to many times. I happen to notice in the credits that they honored Moores wishes and instead gave credit to David Loyd who drew the book with a tag line that said "inspired by the graphic novel drawn by David Loyd". Classy.
The movie was excellent. well adapted with only minor variations on the core story. I'd like to go back and skim the original book now but i remember most of it. The movie was visually stunning, something that the book wasn't. Symbols and ideas were one of the central themes of the book, so at times the drawing was secondary to getting the proper information across. I'd love to see how republicans react to this movie because i could hear the screams of liberal hollywood as i was walking out of the theater. I wish there had been more of a build up reguarding how britan had been a totalitarian state, it could have used more fleshing out but not nessecary. I think too much and this would have seemed more like a 1984 knock off (i just finished reading that and it was excellent) . overall a great movie and a good choice for adaptation. with movies like this,A History of Violence, Sin City and other sweet films actually making good money, maybe film execs will start looking at comic adaptations other then superheros. The Watchmen has been under development forever but doesn't seem to be getting any close to film. i can't wait to hear the phrase "Who watches the Watchmen?" on the big screen. The little poem "remember, remember, the fifth of november" was realy cool and sounded great with that voice they used.

in conclusion, i know too much about this crap. V for ventdetta was very good. Alan moore is crazy, like a fox.

4 comments

You do know too much about it, I only made it through the first paragraph of your post.

By  Damon, at Monday, March 20, 2006 2:15:00 PM  

that about as far as i figure most people will get.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 20, 2006 3:14:00 PM  

haha, i read a bit more. but your topic sentences were fantastic. they helped me decide which paragraphs to read. good work.

By  josh, at Monday, March 20, 2006 4:59:00 PM  

I was actually very impressed. "V for Vendetta" actually covers alot of political breadth. I read an interview with Moore and he said he "wrote it about post-Margret Thatcher Britain when they were shifting further to the right and the arms race was still in effect. He said if they want to compare that situation to the U.S.'s, it'd be stupid. The US is too pussy to write a serious movie against itself anyways. They could've used a Paul Revere mask for V instead. " (paraphrase)

I can still see why they didn't, though. They make some pretty serious accusations and parodies in "V for Vendetta." Without spoiling anything, I'll just say "it's too soon." If you want an advance idea, though, try to Google "Operation Northwoods"

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Monday, March 20, 2006 8:04:00 PM  

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Thursday, March 16, 2006

So, what happened to you at lunch today? 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 3/16/2006 01:23:00 PM

I left my wallet at home this morning so i figured i'd run back real quick and grab it at lunch. it takes 25 minutes each way and i have an hour for lunch, no problem. When i got out to my car, i realized i didn't have enough gas left to get home. shit. i scrounged 2.50$ out of my car and bought 1 gallon of gas. good enough, i got home, grabbed my wallet and headed back to the gas station so i could make it back to work.
I had to wait for the pump so i sat there twiddleing my thumbs waiting for this doofy guy to finish. well, he never really did, he finished pumping and then got back into his car and took off, but he left the hose in his tank and ripped it from the pump. it was hanging out of his car and he just went out the drive way and kept going. The hose fell out of his car as he turned the corner and he was gone. i got out of my car and stood there with my mouth open for about 30 seconds, until a cop pulled in. he looked at me funny until i pointed at the hose on the ground. He came over and asked if i saw what happened. i told him the whole story. he asked if i cought the liscence plate and i hadn't, it was a gold Saab and i'm sure i could point the guy out if needed, but iturned my head and looked at the pump. this stupid fuck paid with his credit card at the pump and just drove off. the cop and i had a good laugh andi said i really had to be getting back to work. he took my number and said he'd be fine, he went inside to get the clerk and i left.
the hose had one of those quick-disconnects on it for situations just like this. there was a little gas on the ground but the pump looked like it would be fine. i was amazed at what i had just witnessed and even more shocked that before i could process it, a cop showed up. who says the police are never around when you need them. if he only knew that moments earlier i had been checking on my new kids i'm sure this would have ended differently.
this half baked story doesn't end here. oh no, i managed to disrespect a corpse too. once this fiascio was over, i high taled it back to work down 91. as i passed the merit-parkway entrance, there were a bunch of cars up a head with thier flashers on. i didn't think anything of it, but i slowed down a little just in case. A black SUV doing about 50 to my 75 jerked the wheel and pulled in front of me. i had to hit the brakes, and pulled out to the next lane over. i passed the SUV and noticed it was a black woman pointing and yelling at me, she pointed up ahead to the rest of the cars and i noticed it was a funeral precession. shit. this wasn't just a nice old single line of cars kind of thing. the hearst was in the middle lane and all the other cars were fanned out behind it taking up the entire highway with thier flashers on. "oh what the fuck!?!" i was already going to be late back for work but doing 50 behind these idiots wasn't going to help. so i did what anybody would have done, tailgated the cars in the left lane at a dangerously close distance and honked a few times until they moved. fuck'um, i was late and this guy was already dead. you can't really expect people to close off the highway for a funneral can you? none of the cars were very nice so i figured that it probably wasn't anyone important and i had a good shot of not making the local news tonight.
When i got back, i was 35 minutes late and no one seemed to notice. maybe the ride home will be a little less eventful.

2 comments

hahaha i love it! that's great, matt.

By  josh, at Thursday, March 16, 2006 3:27:00 PM  

All I gotta say is wow. That IS awesome

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Thursday, March 16, 2006 7:53:00 PM  

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006

I'm back on the junk 

# posted by Brancibeer @ 3/14/2006 04:43:00 PM

Thats right. It happened before i knew it. I was doing fine. I didnt need it, i didnt crave it, i didnt miss it. Then came the freedoms of the weekend. The casual laid back mornings. The warm spring breezy air. It was innocent, it couldnt hurt. My roomates were doing it...social pressure, wants of belonging. Yes, i'll admit it. It was good. It gave me that warm feeling inside that made everything alright. A sense of awareness and a stimulation of the powers of the mind. Oh how sweet it was and how i missed it. It was never really a problem, was it? I can handle it. Next thing i know I'm doing it more and more. Sneaking around buying it, going into situations under its influence. Yes, I'm back on the junk. Sweet sweet coffee.


Ok, stupid post. I've got plans for better though. I just cant seem to find the time to get shit together. I think i need something like a barone size break of unemployment. That would do me well. You guys would get a healthy dose of branciblog then. We'll see...its always later later later, maybe maybe maybe. I'm too responsible and reasonable for my own damn good.

13 comments

i've been off coffee for a while myself. actually, i meant to post about it the other day but never got around to it. i have a cup here or there, but i havent drank it on a daily basis since december. weird thing is, this is probably the semester i need it most. finals time should be interesting.

though, part of compensating for this has been my switch to tea. i found this nice caffeinated tea i like, and drink that quite often.

By  josh, at Tuesday, March 14, 2006 8:21:00 PM  

i'v only start the coffe thing recently. i NEVER drank it before i started my first job, and i didn't drink it at all while i was unemployed. now that i'm working again and its readily available for free i drink a cup or two a day.

brian, you're always welcome to live on my couch for as long as you need. It kind of bugs me thinking that i may never have that again, a nice long stretch of true freedom. i'd have to quit work or win the lotto or save up like 5 years worth of vacation to do something like that again.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 14, 2006 8:57:00 PM  

weaksauce. My usual day includes 4 cups of coffee, and 2 bags of black tea. Like a monkey on crack I tell you!

By  ron, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 12:20:00 AM  

Josh I am pretty sure all tea has caffeine unless it says it's decaf, it just has less than coffee. Maybe you mean you found some tea that has extra caffeine?

Wow Ron that's quite a habit. But the last I've heard is that lots of people are addicted to coffee/caffeine, and so what? it's neutral health wise.

I restarted my tea habit that I got in England when I got here, though Sweden is a coffee nation. Most recently I've switched to green tea, which supposedly gives you all these magic health effects if you drink some ridiculous amount like 4-6 cups a day. I don't.

I hate the thought of a long period of unemployment, and I've done it a few times, once for about 3 or 4 months and it was awful as that was when I was depressed, but I think that was the result of the specific situation, not the extended layoff although that exacerbated it.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 1:04:00 AM  

I like Coffee and Tea. There are many good Herbal Teas that are Caffeine free, i drink one called African Red Bush many nights before bed, but i swear it gives me crazy dreams.

All the time im thinking about taking a "Career Break." Just traveling around the world or something. But in truth, since age 16 i have only been "unemployed" for one month, when i just got back from the army, i had no car and i went crazy, i wanted to work soooo bad. I also just got an award from the Mohegans for not taking a day off for over a year.

I think im just a WORKERMONKEY...

By  wyldshaman, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 8:10:00 AM  

African Red Bush. I've had that. There was a very popular tea in S. Africa called Roibois (pronounced Roy-bows). I think its the same. I also liked honey bush, or something like that (insert joke here).

I also think i would get bored with an extended stretch of unemployment. One of the things that annoys me about life is the 'damned if you do, damned if you dont' mentality. If i'm working...i dont want to be, if i'm not working...i want to be.

Plus, i'm getting all into money saving now. I havnt taken time off in a long time because i wont get paid. Its like an addiction.

By  Brancibeer, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 9:29:00 AM  

i simply specified that my tea was caffeinated to contrast it with uncaffeinated tea. you are right, most tea is normally caffeinated i believe (or a lot is). either way, its called "awake" and is supposed to serve the function i'm looking for. it doesnt work quite as well as coffee, but its good.

By  josh, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 12:45:00 PM  

Ahh Tazo. That is good stuff. BTW caffeine is highest in Black Teas and lowest in Green and Herbal teas.

My favorite is honey lemon ginseng green tea. Thats the shizit. Peppermint is always good and chamomeal or sleepy time is nice when you want to chill out. I'm not a fan of the fruity teas. The spicy ones are ok once and a while.

By  Brancibeer, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 1:19:00 PM  

Ah, that Roibois is supposed to be chock-full of antioxidants and be very good for you. The problem? In order to make it, they combine baby seals with lamb's blood.

I'm easily peerpressured into drinking more coffee on the job. "Matthew will take anything we offer him!" So I do like 3-4 cups a day.

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 5:28:00 PM  

I like cup of full strength, then a cup of 1/2 caf, then 2 small cups of decag. After lunch I have one cup of tea at 1:30, Brown or Green, both are good (I don't care if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice - Deng). No more caffiene after that. Only hallucinagins, alcohol and suicide pacts before bed. Some times a hot chocalate can be substituted for any of the above, and even though it has caffiene, I consider it ok to have before bed. Masterbation is enough of a work out to cancel a little caffiene.

By  Anonymous, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 7:41:00 PM  

The only downside to the caffeine addiction is that you need to keep it up daily. If you miss a day without a cup of something you (at least I) get a splitting fucking headache that only 6+ beers can cure, if you even feel like drinking.

man, if only speed was legal....

By  ron, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 11:27:00 PM  

Yeah....if only.....

waitaminute.....

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Thursday, March 16, 2006 8:15:00 AM  

ha HA!

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Thursday, March 16, 2006 9:21:00 AM  

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Monday, March 13, 2006

mondays are gettings worse..... 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 3/13/2006 01:55:00 PM

...or maybe i'm just rocking harder? mondays are getting worse, and this one in paticular more so than others. maybe i really am getting older, or the years of binge drinking and smoking are starting to catch up. It takes longer to recover now, mondays used to only be a halfday hangover and i'd be fine by monday night. now its a full day thing and i feel like shit for the start of tuesday. it really is going to take me two full days to recover from this one.

if you want a quick rundown of the reason behind this hangover, here they are. Friday night started with wine, and after that i don't remember anything past tequila. sleep was approximated at 4-6 hours, i woke up at 9 and was feeling still drunk, so i threw some headphones on and rocked out in my own little stoned world for a few hours. after that i finished a little glass project and started drinking, again and then went down to gregs for a sweet party. picture this, beer pong with 6 people, 200 cups, and a full 30 pack. it took about 85 minutes to finish. that set the mood for the night pretty well. the party was good, then we went back to my place where there seemed to be an instant party with fresh faces and more booze. something happened, i can't confirm much but i snapped back into reality at about 4 with a warm body in my lap. woke up at 9 again and quickly got excited for the ST. pattys day parade in New Haven. the morning was feuled by a giant cup of coffee and an unhealthy dose of energy drink. off to the big city where we missed the parade because we were drunk in the playwright. at about 4 in the afternoon my body just shut down and wouldn't allow me to drink any more. got home around 7 and sank into the couch after a long weekend. the sopranos was a good episode too. i had trouble going to sleep last night so i only got about 4 hours again. all told, too much beer to count, smoke pile is depleated to say the least, and i got about 14 hours of drunk sleep over three nights. after a quick re-read of this quick recap, it's not hard to see why i'm a fucking waste today and i can't think straight or eat much.

12 comments

yeah, you pretty much answered your own questions in that post. All i got to say is alteast it was a warm body and not a cold one. THAT would have been a hell of a weekend.

By  Brancibeer, at Monday, March 13, 2006 3:08:00 PM  

right on, and the cold body as something that i did check for. i get nervous sometimes because hey, i don't remember what i did so its not outside the realm of possilbilty that maybe i did killsomeone and was drunk enough to sit there petting thier cold body. not the best situation to be in but no impossible.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 13, 2006 3:52:00 PM  

i might need more details on this post. i miss having weekends like that up there with you guys. here, i'm mainly surrounded by douchebags. but i like the law, so it's a trade off.

i still have no narrower idea of what i want to do with my life, except that i wont be working 80hr weeks, or if i do, its cuz that was the job i could get right away. then i get some experience, and i'm out. some days, its just fuckin depressing here.

i'm glad to hear you guys are all doing well, and i look forward to catching up. i'll definitely be home at some point in the summer, or maybe for all of it. who knows.

By  josh, at Monday, March 13, 2006 4:14:00 PM  

I think the solution is obvious... suicide pact. Anyone know when the next time Haley's Comet is swinging through here? The voices tell me our alien hosts have free beer and one piece outfits.

By  Anonymous, at Monday, March 13, 2006 6:36:00 PM  

But on the upside? Plizaywright is cool and we got a bunch of folks to hang out. And the Irish? Yeah the Irish were there. The cover band didn't do any Pogues songs though, to my disgust.

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Monday, March 13, 2006 8:42:00 PM  

I heard about the bar tab. I'm glad I didn't go.

By  ron, at Monday, March 13, 2006 10:26:00 PM  

tuesday update; yup, still feeling it. today started with an akward dump and has moved onto the mindnumbing lecture about part numbers, this time it wasn't my fault though, mike just assumes that i'm the one making the mistakes. that killed a good two hours of my morning.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 14, 2006 11:47:00 AM  

I, who took the 30 minute drive home so drunk a few times that I hit snow banks on both sides of the road, who threw up in the parking lot before work, who became clinically depressed, who temporarily lost the ability to understand written or spoken English, am now very happy, excelling in studies, and am safer and healthier, recommend that you cut down on alcohol.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 14, 2006 12:07:00 PM  

well, driving hasn't been a problem yet, but i do get other people to drive or just crash where i am, i don't think i'm depressed but i'm not a doctor, i haven't thrown up from drinking in more then a year that i can remember, this week was the first time i haven't been able to handle reading or writing since the summer, i seem to be doing ok at work, i guess thats excelling. am i just rationalizing this or what? i can't tell anymore.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 14, 2006 1:48:00 PM  

For me it feels like i've grown out of that stage a little. (I'm not bragging or being condescending...i'm trying to analyize my own feelings toward the matter.) I cant remember the last time I've been really drunk. I get tipsy at most then stop. I dont see any fun in getting wasted, not remembering, then feeling like shit for 2-3 days. I dont enjoy stupid drunk conversation, in fact in annoys me. I like to maintain control of myself and my actions. I dont feel like i make any progress of any sorts by getting wasted. It just seems plain silly and immature (getting drunk) when i think about it. Of course thats just me.

Maybe its because i'm not around you guys anymore. Your social group has a lot to do with it.

By  Brancibeer, at Tuesday, March 14, 2006 3:16:00 PM  

we should be known as the anti-AA, we're a support group for heavy drinkers.

hey, i have to act all responsible and adult like everyday for work and life in general, can't i act like a retard or some little kid on the weekends? plus, i like drinking. fridays roll around and i just feel like a countdown has begun for the time i have until i have to go back to work. i can't stay up late and fuck off during the week so i go balls to the wall when i can. plus, i'm usually having fun while doing so. fun good, work bad. drink good, responsibility bad.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Tuesday, March 14, 2006 3:47:00 PM  

I think I'm stuck inbetween right now. Still get hammered on occasion, but I prefer not getting hangovers and wasting days feeling like shit. I drink more often (daily), but much less volume.

By  ron, at Wednesday, March 15, 2006 12:18:00 AM  

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Friday, March 10, 2006

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 3/10/2006 09:23:00 AM

Party

Ferarros

Saturday night

8:00, All invited. Its his birthday. I don't know if he knows about it.

See, that wasn't so bad.

3 comments

after a review, the call on the field was upheld, first and ten, good guys.

no surprise. tell everyone.
call the skirters

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:05:00 AM  

see if we hada server we could transfer files like thi quite easily. i'm just going to keep commenting my self on my own post. right now i feel still drunk and i'm rocking out at 9;30 in the fucking morning.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Saturday, March 11, 2006 9:37:00 AM  

keep up the good work rummy

By  ron, at Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:27:00 PM  

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Friday, March 03, 2006

it would seem that the people want a server..... 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 3/03/2006 01:57:00 PM

if anyone has been paying attention to the sidebar and the comments of the poll, it would seem as though a few people are intreagued, to say the least, about the possibility of an upgrade to the working monkey. My feelings are, GREAT! its more then time we got a serious website under us with the ability to do what ever we want.  you could broadcast an internet radio show as often as you want from it, (it's easier then you think) we could all share files and pics, store video clips, create articals, write essays, show porn, do what ever we want.

catch: bandwidth.

if we do too much with the site, or get too much traffic, our bandwidth will skyrocket. if we use our own server (shitbox), as far as i know, we're stuck with the bandwidth limits imposed by our local service providers. If we use a hosting company, we pay more for higher bandwidth alotments and whatever the monthly fee is. i've see ndeal online for like 15 bucks a month we could get a good size limit for the bandwidth. registering a domain name cost like 10 bucks for a year so that would be minimal. Plus, who is going to design this thing? who's going to know how to make changes? designing the type of site we'd want is way over my head, i couldn't do it. Damon, i know you have more experience in this stuff than i do so your input is very much needed no this topic, ron i think you know more then you're letting on to also. i'd love to learn about this stuff but as it stands now, the workermonkey is the hieght of my webdesign skills. and all i did was alter a template.

i suggest we all start looking at how sites are built, spend sometime online looking at different services and asking around. there has to be a million sites selling services and designs, or just trying to teach webdesign. i'm sure howstuffworks.com has some sort of simple explaination of the basic elements of how this stuff works. I'd love for this to generate more discussion. opinions are welcome.

23 comments

damn it, i started writing this post before i saw the other one.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Friday, March 03, 2006 4:21:00 PM  

Ron or my excess computers could easily handle the load as most servers have weak processors but a decent amount of ram. Bandwidth is the problem, and since it's upload speed you need, regular broadband won't cut it. I would guess that a commerical hosting plan is much cheaper than just buying the necessary upload bandwidth. I have been out of this stuff since college, but there were a lot of decent plans under $10, it even seems serious hosting starts around $5 a month.

Ah now I've checked a host I was last interesting in: 1and1.com. Look at the details of their "Beginner Linux" plan: $2.99/mo with one domain registration (.com .net .org included) 5GB space, 250GB a month transfer, FrontPage server extensions, PHP, MySQL,500 email accounts, daily backup, etc. They do Windows hosting as well, basically the same thing without PHP or MySQL.

Before you pick a host, you need to think about the site and design. If Matt wants to stream (make him pay for the bandwidth) make sure the server can do that. If you will need cgi, check that, etc. Depending on how you code it, the server software makes a difference. This is actually the best reason to use your own pc, because when you realize you need some specific cgi script, you can just install it no hassle, rather than being forced to upgrade your hosting plan. Given the different software and requirements for streaming, I think that is usually hosted separately from websites.

I for one, am quite happy with the Monkey as is, as it does everything I need it to, so I am not anxious to get going with web design again, but it's really quite easy. I did very little by hand. If the server uses FrontPage extensions, you can do rather complicated things very easily with FrontPage. Dreamweaver is supposed to be great but I never really figured it out, I used Fusion mainly. If it's a page built like that, probably only one person will edit it, and you'd end up using an external forum or MoveableType to host a blog on it, so anyone could easily add content. That simplicity is what makes blogs so popular and makes us on here everyday, rather than dragging out the design software, editing, and doing an ftp update.

Oh and I don't like flash. Mainly because they refuse to do a 64-bit linux port, but also because it is generally distracting and annoying. There are some people that block it altogether, and my main browser does not use it. I used to have animated navigation menus without flash, I forgot what was used, but it's possible. Javascript maybe? Java itself likewise blows as it takes a little while to load (like long enough for a visitor to get bored and leave) and is then slow to update as well.

By  Damon, at Friday, March 03, 2006 5:24:00 PM  

Oh yeah, and when you are thinking of making money on it, do you have an idea how many people visit this site? Do you have ideas for the new site that are unique, that people are searching for on the web and not finding? I thought this site was for us, and I think we are our own main audience.

My previous sites had only a handful of quite interested people and that was it. Except when I uploaded some CAD software from PSU and got 15k hits in a day before they took it down.

By  Damon, at Friday, March 03, 2006 5:28:00 PM  

We'll make enough money on porn between the regular visitors of this site (except you of course), I pormise.

By  NoBrainRequired, at Friday, March 03, 2006 7:18:00 PM  

Who says I don't enjoy some good porn now and then?

By  Damon, at Saturday, March 04, 2006 1:06:00 AM  

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By  Brancibeer, at Sunday, March 05, 2006 1:03:00 AM  

That's a great idea to start it on the shitbox so you'll better know what your needs are (and learn tons about SSI, cgi, etc, try apache2 for the server) and bandwidth probably won't be a factor initially (ever?) I don't know anything about buying templates, didn't know you could, all I do know about that is when someone uses a common theme out of FrontPage (the most common offender) and it looks like a million other pages, that shows imcompetance from the designer. Oh and with a title like "senior consultant" that gets me about $300/hr right? So far I think I can bill you 10 minutes.

By  Damon, at Sunday, March 05, 2006 1:14:00 AM  

I don't think any one here expects this to turn a profit. However, I also don't think anyone here wants to foot the bill. So it's only natural to consider how we could fund this thing, with the least inconvinience to any of us.

That's why I suggest hosting some porn. Although I don't know how much that would net a low traffic site, something is better than nothing. Porn is probably easiest, because it is so ubiquitous. would probly be easy to find other sponsors that wouldn't impose any kind of "moral" restriction some other BS clause that would ultimately limit the nature of our content. At least with porn, we not dealing with a bunch of uptight assholes (although I suppose they could be assholes, but I imagine not very uptight ones).

Another way to go might be to get pay pal compatibility and collect donations. I can't say what their terms of use are, but it's probably secure and would come with some kind of call/tech support. It might even come with instructions to set it up on the site. Just something we should look into.

We can use all the power of our brains. Our "intelligent enough to launch monkeys into to space", Our highly educated, highly trained occasionally high, brains.

Matt's talking about hosting his music. If he is giving it up for free (that slut) it could draw some considerable donations. If he is looking at selling it (that whore), maybe we could sell extra space to other independent musicians. Another revenue stream, another set of band with issues. We will always have issues to deal with if we do try do more than the forum thing. It might be worth it though, to take it to the next level.

By  NoBrainRequired, at Monday, March 06, 2006 5:17:00 PM  

unless mo is willing to let us take pictures i don't think we'll be doing other then advertising porn. they pay well because people won't advertise it on popular sites. i'm not expecting to make a profit, just collect a little money occationally to offset a little cost.

paypal is going to be used if/when i start to collect money. you'll see one of those little paypal donation buttons below the blogger one.

i did a little research over the weekend, hosting options were a little cheaper then i thought, a good one for 6-7 dollars a months isn't hard to find. our problem again will be design. i found a few website template factories but we'd have to understand the code behind it to alter it good enough. Plus we'd still be starting from scratch since there are so many different things at play. we all want to keep blogger i nthe loop because it's easy for people to use/post/contribute. blogger makes it easy to set up posting to an external source like a different website. We could get a cheep site template that we could alter for like 30$, someing sweet and flash based for 70$. I found some nice ones but i have no idea how i'd integrate some of the stuf we need. if someone knows how to build a forum or knows a good site for it let me. thats where i'd start.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 06, 2006 7:16:00 PM  

I'm at the exact point Matt's at. Our best bet is buying a bitchin' flash template, at about $70. That's the easy part, of course. As Matt said, figuring out how to alter the template to add forums, etc. without mutilating it is the hard part. I been practicing some HTML but if I were to make a site it would look like it's from 1995 at best. I'm currently trying to "get" Dreamweaver, which could make code-scripting a breeze (maybe?)

Looney: you're an idea-man. And I like all of them. If Kristen gives me pictures they're for my eyes only, though. She told me.

Once we bang these technical issues out of the way, our goal shall simply be to make a website that performs the functions that this one does. Step two is to make it better - then perhaps we'll have the grand switch-over.
The rest is easy after that:
3)money
4)power
5)women

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Monday, March 06, 2006 9:08:00 PM  

6) sugar

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 06, 2006 9:19:00 PM  

http://www.hypertemplates.com/templates/9526.html
i bet you saw this one. damon, any good ideas about frontpage? i'm sure it's easy enough, is it good enough to use for what we want? i have no idea.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 06, 2006 9:35:00 PM  

I can't see the flash preview of that because well, I don't have flash, but the other previews look really unusual. Navigation in the four corners? What if someone's screeen cuts off the bottom or right side? Well make it small enough to avoid that? Then when someone comes with a high res 19" or 21" it only covers 1/4 their screen. Cool that its unconventional, but there is a reason that layout is unconventional.

FrontPage can do whatever you need it to (especially if the host uses extensions then it can do more than you think you can) you just have to make an effort to avoid the tempting easy ways to do things. Go out of your way to use custom graphics and themes and layouts and you avoid the cookie cutter look. But sure if Matt can get Dreamweaver going, that is a program that I think many pro websites are done in. Really either program is meant to build full fledged sites and can do it, just a matter of which you prefer and the learning curve.

Someone stole my credit card number! Now let's see if they stole any other info, maybe you'll see "me" post about the glories of Windows and Internet Explorer and how we should use nifty ActiveX controls and how safe they are.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:35:00 AM  

Sucks to be Damon for once? Ha!
Makes me glad I have no money and mediocre credit. No, actually....I'm not glad.

Success! I got Dreamweaver but not Frontpage yet. Perhaps I'll demo it anyway. I'll be working on some Dreamweaver tutorials for the next few days.

Cool looking template - keep looking and just make notes of the best-suited ones for us; I also will. I'm tempted towards one of those architectural-looking ones just because they look ill, but it would be unfortunate if the entire theme was incongruous.
I think I'll make another lil' project of making a monkey with a coffee cup in photoshop or something.

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Tuesday, March 07, 2006 10:49:00 AM  

Cool Matt cool, it sounds cool so I hope it'll look cool and more importantly function cool.

Anyway, it doesn't suck too much to be me (well maybe it does but not because of stolen credit) because that "zero liability for unauthorized purchases" is important, true, easy, and a relief. It was just 8 minutes on the phone (when it was 4am in the US and it was a collect call) no holding at all:
"peoplesearch.com for $24.95?"
"no."
"online department store for $85?"
"no."
....
"ok the total was $171.79, so just igonre that on your next statement and we'll have it settled in one or two cycles."

I mean really, how cool is it that they noticed the activity of a card I used almost daily, online and in stores, called me within that day, shut off the card, and have a new one on the way to my foreign address that I'll get by the end of the week? No problems, just twice before they have shut it off when there was no fraud, like when I moved here, but overall, I think they are doing really well. They didn't ask me if I knew how my card info got stolen (I don't,) but I certainly hope they work with the merchants on the other end to try to find the person doing it. I am sure they do, not like the credit card company just wants to take a loss.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 07, 2006 3:46:00 PM  

Damon, both MBNA and Discover (my 2 cards) offer a service that generates a number that expires after a specified period. I swear by it. Then again I'm sure you are very careful.

This post/comments is a good example of why a thread forum format would suit us better.

As for my involvement...... not right now.

By  ron, at Tuesday, March 07, 2006 7:36:00 PM  

Ah yes, we are back to finance, an inescapable topic. I am aware of MBNA and another card I used to have (Citi?) generating temp numbers. I used to use them, just last I knew (ca. 2003) MBNA used a Windows program. 1. I don't use Windows. 2. Windows users don't need another program running all the time when they only need it once a month. Maybe this has changed and the other one just required a website visit. I will see what MBNA's is like now, as that is my only card for the moment.

One interesting note, I don't usually log off my banking websites if I am using my own computer. Yeah you can press back and get back into my account, but who cares, the pc is in my flat. However, I have just read you should log off before going to other websites. I know that websites know where you were last even if you didn't link there. Like you're at this site, then type www.google.com and the Google server can see blogspot.com I don't know why that is, but maybe this was a way it got lost. Then again with the myriad reports of massive stolen data at many credit issuers, I am certain my stuff was in there somewhere. The credit report I got after I filed a fraud alert shows 17 credit accounts! Damn, thing is, it's right, I have had that many. Oh yeah, and I used totally unsecured wifi for two months in the fall, and then for another month later when our own DSL went down and we used someone elses. That's just giving away my info isn't it? Having an unencrypted wifi connection could be a trap, and am I going to be quick to mention it when a problem comes up? After all, I was stealing their bandwidth.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 5:07:00 AM  

Maybe soon it will really suck to be me when I am dead. The bird flu has killed 94 people so far and recently has been found in several birds in Sweden, now just 120km from Sthlm.

Maybe I am sick, but I find all the doomsday talk more interesting and fascinating than scary. That is until they break the death toll predictions into ratios. I have recently heard between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 20 are predicted to die from it. 1 in 20? Wow, when we are sitting around thinking how crazy things are and toasting to life, there will be a few of us missing. But of course they 1 in 20 is not equally distributed so isolated America should do well.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 6:08:00 AM  

Damon do you eat out alot? I have heard about waiters and such having Credit Card Scanners in their pockets and they just scan them each time someone pays with a credit card. It was a big problem in the Chinese Resturants in New York(or some other big city) for awhile. Im sure "hi-tech" Sweden has these devices floating around in the cities?

If we did not eat birds, there would be no worrying about The Bird Flu. FREE THE CHICKENS!!!! Its funny people dont ever talk about this fact.

By  wyldshaman, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 8:59:00 AM  

freeing the chickens would woork but i think in the long run it might make the problem worse. people will be forced to raise thier own chickens, and part of the problems is that all these shitty little third world farms are spreading the desease because they just don't know any better, and i'm sure this is how it started. could you see every red neck in america trying to raise thier own chickens? it'd be a nightmare and i'm sure we'd have more problems.

you take my chickens away and i'll choke you with alfalfa you damn hippie.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 9:29:00 AM  

I rarely eat out as it's such a waste of money, and when I do it's places that are so cheap cards probably aren't allowed. In fact I don't think I've used my card at a restuarant here.

I rarely eat chicken, but eggs are a regular feature. I eat more beef, so maybe Sweden's fresh cases of Mad Cow should be more of a concern.

Ah it doesn't matter, just being an American abroad is more trouble, especially should I get into Turkey and Russia like I want to, and if I pass as Swedish then (gotta remember to get a little flag, though I don't think they wear them like Canadians) well at some point the nuclear holocaust seems to be becoming more of an issue than it had been since the 70's.

Ah nevermind, maybe in this season's melt freeze daily cycle I will just fall and split my head open and bleed to death in the courtyard of my apartment building.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 1:28:00 PM  

Oh and I usually ask every vegetarian I meet why they don't eat meat. I don't argue with their answers, though in general they seem weak. One I liked was (only doesn't eat beef) "It's not sustainable, beacuse the amount of grain required to feed the....[a few minutes of figures and sources omitted]" But I laugh when people just want the cows and whatnot let loose to be free and wild. Then they would become extinct because animals without a few thousand years of human caretaking would chow down like a fat family at McD's except for the "smart" former-domestics that hang out around people for protection. So we'd have cows strolling the streets like pigeons.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 3:01:00 PM  

...right along side of deer and bears.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 10:25:00 PM  

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Website Progress I: Coalition-Building 

# posted by DJ Booze Piñata @ 3/03/2006 12:29:00 PM

I'll make this into a main post so it's plain to see.

Whereas: I intend to be involved in moving Multipurpose Workermonkey onto its own hosted domain site, complete with features such as
- forums (much better than Blog format since topics can be revisited and ongoing),
- media (we'll figure this out)
- the ability to expand into what we'll make of it (some form of revenue, eventually? Perhaps stuff we'll create. Why don't you build her a cake?)

Whereas: I intend to have a sister-page to the Workermonkey intended for my music production. This includes not only my own little Frankensteins, but also the recorded versions of my WESU radio show, playlists and all. It's coming in baby steps, but I'm improving at it and I intend to have them available for audio streaming. There's soon to be a little more talking or issue-tackling on the show, since many listeners tune in to a particular program for the personalities, not just the music. If, say, Ron were to start flexing some skills at Flash animation then I could help add the audio.

Whereas: There are a number of issues we need to look at regarding the creation of this site.
- Host Servers -
A "dedicated server" is one that is strictly for your business and will not be shared. This is too expensive, probably. Can one of us run it off of a barebones computer? Maybe, but it's likely to run into bandwidth issues, as well as pretty slow load-times. That's only a prediction, though. A "reseller" buys a multi-domain package and cheaply sells the remaining domains to others. Cheap, but possibly lacking in needed features like customer support. There's a number of very good companies out there which sell great packages which are worth paying the $10/month or less: Midphase, Lunar Pages, IPower, StartLogic, etc. I did some research this week, and I'd be happy to run our subscription; however I'm not beginning a pay cycle until I know that we have a soon-to-be functional website that has already been designed and drafted. Which brings us to....

- Website Design -
As I see it, there are 3 options:
Professional website design assistance: $300 at LEAST. Not a ton, but significant enough to warrent a collection pool. This is also most likely to yield the best-looking results.
Purchase a decent Template: under $100, and we do the rest ourselves.
Do-It-Yourself: free, but by far the most time-consuming. I don't think any of us has enough functional in-depth knowledge of HTML scripting etc. yet to make anything good-looking. YET. We should be looking for a dynamic interface, for starters. You know....on the minimum end, just links which get affected or light up as a mouse cursor moves over it. Someone with experience in graphics-editing like Photoshop would help. Looking your way, Branciforte.

- Bandwidth & Memory -
Considering I'll want music and media to be available, we'll need to have at least a few gigabytes of memory and a decent amount of bandwidth space in case the site ends up being well-traveled. If we put up some content that alot of folks would find cool, or even a hard-to-find video clip of a granny-punch or something weird, we could end up with many visitors at the same time. A good test of a Web Host is to check on some sites that use them as a host. Is the load-time fast or slow? If the physical location of the server drives is in China or Djibuti then it'll be a greater lag-time. So it's good to know that the company has a homegrown office area.

After work today I'm going to get some how-to books on Web-Design Scripting and maybe Flash Animation or something similar. I may or may not need some tertiary knowledge on SQL Databases for one reason or another. Prolly not.

Therefore: I welcome comments and suggestions. Pretty big buildup just for that, eh?

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Swedish equality 

# posted by Damon @ 3/03/2006 07:16:00 AM

In Sweden everyone is supposed to equal so for example big business guys don't where suits. Well no one wears suits really. In the initial address from the university president in September he wore an ill fitting jacket and jeans. So it comes as no surprise I suppose that these photos of Peter Forsberg (in Swedish it's "forsh-berrry") at the team's celebratory night back in Stockholm were published in the paper despite looking like your average drunk friend at a college party. The last one was captioned about even millionare NHL players needing some cash for the night out or something like that.

And ok the first one is just a picture of the crowd welcoming them back, which I imagine was a few hours before the guys got drunk. This is not uncommon, they frequently publish pictures of wasted celebrities at events, because well, that is what Swedes do.

Photos published without permission from Expressen

4 comments

You SUCK Forsberg!!

By  Brancibeer, at Friday, March 03, 2006 8:26:00 AM  

Why does he suck? He is a national hero here. He is also not the only one with bad photos, but I thought he was the most famous and recognizable in the US, so I used him as an example. I think the women's team got up to similar schenanigans.

By  Damon, at Friday, March 03, 2006 9:12:00 AM  

i'd have liked to see that womens pics more. forsberg is a flyer now, back off. flyers need him to be superman down the stretch, everyone else is hurt.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Friday, March 03, 2006 9:18:00 AM  

huh, NHL? I though that wenk bankrupt or something last year. I'm with branciteam, I hate forsberg.

By  ron, at Saturday, March 04, 2006 12:30:00 PM  

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Thursday, March 02, 2006

Slap that bitch 

# posted by Brancibeer @ 3/02/2006 05:24:00 PM

Wow. At first i thought it was an accident.

2 comments

well, now he doesn't have to tell her again.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Thursday, March 02, 2006 6:26:00 PM  

the greek-slap goes discreet!

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Thursday, March 02, 2006 8:42:00 PM  

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Wednesday, March 01, 2006

On Wealth 

# posted by wyldshaman @ 3/01/2006 08:54:00 AM

For we have brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out.
And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil,...
The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy 6:7-10

My Current Investment Strategy:
Minimume 10% into 401K - diversified to at least 40% overseas holdings.
Weekly $ amount buying of I(inflation) Bonds taken directly out of paycheck.
Extra money placed in 3 month CD's.

401K - Its good, you get tax breaks for amount you put in, but its not good if you need the money soon, but you can also take loans against your holdings in an emergency. But depending on your plan, some 401K's have limited mutual fund options, like 5 lossers. My plan has 20+ through Merril Lynch, the website sucks, but i can alway move money into winning funds. I dont micro manage this, i rework my holds every quarter based on my own analysis, normally what funds are making the most recently.

I Bonds - US Gov bonds, why let the Chinese pay for American dept, be a patriot, invest in the USA. These bonds are exempt from state tax's and exempt from federal taxes if used to pay for higher education, great way to save for a childs education. They currently pay 6.73%, 1% above inflation. But if Hyper-Inflation sets in the inflation adjustment will fall behind as its re-calculated every 6 months, but i think that will be the last of our worries then.

Bank CD - Short term CD's are best when interest rates are on the rise, like now, the FED has raised rates like 18 times or something in a row and i think they will do so at least 2 more times. In a more stable finacial environment, long term CD's would be better, 1 year plus, i think. But i use CD's as a sort of savings account, with different 3-month cd's rolling over each month always giving me money if needed to pay bills. Currently my 3-monthers are paying 4.25%, the rates have gone up each time the FED raises rates which is every quarter. A good one year CD will pay 4.8% give or take, but remember your real earnings on this is -1% as the current US inflation rate is 5.73%(give or take).

IRA/Roth IRA/Brokerage Accounts/Stuff - Great if you have buku bucks, awhile back i opened a brokerage account and a Roth IRA, but i was so worried all the time about my stocks and the market, plus i knew i wasnt paying enough attention to the market, lost some money, made some money. And worst of all each time i found a "good" stock, i would soon find out the dark side of the company, like BP, they were using slaves in Tibet to build oil pipelines so i sold my shares of them, but they continued to make money, my dad was sure to tell me that, as i gave him that stock pick. So now i just go with the 3 investments listed above, at least with the 401K my money is all over the place, i just hope im not supporting too much slavery or too much pollution and such.
If people do get into Brokerage or IRA accounts i would suggest Vanguard, they are the leader in Index and low-cost mutual funds. The finacial sector's job is to make money, sure they want you to make money too, but really "they" want to make money, most try to take at least 3% off the top of your earnings, so if you should be making 10%, really you only made 7%.(I think Tim can back me up on this) But many of Vanguards mutual funds have fractional percentage managment fees, like 0.35%, this is really good, it can mean an extra 1-2% in profits for you each year and this is huge in the long run. Also im a huge fan of Index funds.

But most of this talk is nonsense, becuase there really are massive problems in the US, that the people and politicians refuse to deal with. But i think i have talked alot alread so, i wont get into these. Maybe a future post if people are interested?

Ron sorry for any misspellings, but the spell check did not work and i only go a D+ in high school english.

2 comments

As per the Motley Fool, mutual funds are awful as most often you are paying the manager to underperform the market. You can get any broker and buy an index fund with some fraction of a percent expenses, and it outperforms something like 65% of actively managed funds. I use Scottrade and have been quite happy, though I can't buy CDs in my IRA since the minimums are $10k, but why would I want to? Stocks kill any guaranteed investments in the long term and IRAs have limited reasons to take the money out if you are less than 60. If anyone does open a Scottrade account, please talk to me beforehand as I get a kickback. Also as TMF advises, the money in my IRA could be lost without causing me hardship, so I can happily swing for the fences, and have picked I think 6 stocks that I saw double, but found none of TMF's "10-baggers" i.e. 10 times increase in value. Naturally some have crumbled too, like Merck :) And one was even delisted.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 01, 2006 11:48:00 AM  

My family likes Scottrade too. I personaly like E*Trade for its one-stop shopping, i have my checking, savings and CD's through them, and their Brokerage/IRA platform is top notch, but the cost-to-trade is higher.

Having little desire to be rich, i dont worry about "10-baggers" i just think if i live modest and save, i can be happy now and in the future.

By  wyldshaman, at Thursday, March 02, 2006 8:33:00 AM  

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