Tag Archives: random

The president on IRC?

<DrBacchus> Excuse me a moment while I kill my neighbor.
<DrBacchus> There. I feel a little better now.
<cynic> Harsh.
<DrBacchus> You don’t know my neighbor.
<DrBacchus> Of course, now you never will.
<DrBacchus> I wonder if IRC transcripts are admissible as admissions of guilt in court.
<chipig> it could of been faked.
<DrBacchus> True.
<DrBacchus> fajita: forget everything!
<fajita> DrBacchus: I forgot everything
<DrBacchus> *phew*
<chipig> if i had windows, i could just open notepad and write an irc log…
<DrBacchus> At least the bot won’t talk.
<chipig> Bush Admits there weren’t WMDs in Iraq, admission found in IRC log!
<DrBacchus> The day we have a president that hangs out on IRC, I’ll move to Canada.
<chipig> heh
<DrBacchus> I’m terrified of the prospect of my generation being in the Oval Office.
<DrBacchus> Imagine ThePrez emailing congress: yo guyz lets’ bom irak lol. kk?
* DrBacchus shudders

Kerry and Kenya

I’ve found the most compelling reason not to vote for Kerry. *EVERY* time I see his name in a news headline, I think that the headline says “Kenya” instead, and I go to read the article, only to be disappointed that it’s some lame free advertisement for Kerry’s presidential campaign.

Raquetball

I played raquetball last night. And, as usual, I threw myself into it with an abandon that had very little influence from my lack of physical ability to do so. Does anyone else play the rule that GBI (Grevious Bodily Injury) gets you extra points?

Now I am sore all over, and very tired, even though I went to bed relatively early.

One of the guys that was there playing is 76 years old, and was whipping up on everybody that he was playing. I hope I have that kind of energy when I’m 76. I suppose I need to start now by actually exercising more than once a month.

The astonishing inefficiency of the IRS

I owe taxes on a previous tax year. I just sent payment for the most recent tax year, and specified very clearly to which year it was to be applied. In response, I got a letter stating that it had been applied to the other year, and that I had overpaid. They further informed me that it would take 6-8 weeks to determine if I still owed taxes on any other year before they could issue a refund. So, meanwhile, the year on which I attempted to pay is overdue and getting fines, and the year that I had a nice happy payment plan for, is paid off, and I’m short $500 while they attempt to do a database lookup.

How could it *possibly* take 6-8 weeks for them to determine whether I have other tax debts? That degree of inefficiency is simply staggering.

In all my recent dealing with the IRS, I am increasingly persuaded that they are incompetent bumbling fools working with (at least) 30-year-old technology to solve a problem that doesn’t need to be solved. I’m sure that a database containing records for 200+ million people is no small matter, but 6 weeks to query my account to see what I owe? Is it any wonder that tax fraud is such a big problem?

Not 19 any more

I had another “not 19 any more” moment today, when I discovered that, although I probably could have climbed that cliff, I lacked the courage to do so. Or perhaps I considered my physical well-being to be of greater importance than the 3 minutes I’d save by going up instead of around.

I went out hiking at the Asbury College ropes course area, and it was raining some of the time I was out there. Apparently some tornados came by pretty close, but I saw no evidence of them. In fact, I was expecting a lot more rain than I encountered. But I came back very wet and very muddy, and it was a lot of fun.

Highlights

Still haven’t had a chance to catch up on the week’s events at Big Nerd, but here are a few of the highlights.

* Saw an Apache on the way up from Apache training. Kinda cool.
* The first 30 miles driving north from Whitesburg took more than 3 hours. Geez. How does anybody get anywhere in the Atlanta area? It seems that I didn’t get out of Atlanta until after Chattanooga!
* A friend who does concert lighting has offered me a ticket to the June 2 Rush show in Columbus. I’ve been wanting to see these guys for more than 10 years, and was prepared to pay rediculous sums for a concert this year, since I figure the chances of seeing them drop significantly each year as they get older. Apparently it’s still a rockin’ show, and well worth the drive up to Columbus. Dean++
* Waiting in the mail when I got home was an empty padded envelope from O’Reilly. Huh? Seems they paid $5.75 to send me an empty envelope. What’s up with that? Must inquire around.
* Found a typo (“Vistual Hosts”) in the index for Apache Cookbook. Oy.
* The class was pretty amazing. Great students. Awesome post-class feedback. And the food. How am I going to manage on my regular fare after that? The Big Nerd folks are great to work with. I recommend it to anyone, either as a student or an instructor.
* Clifford (The Big Red Dog) and Franklin (the turtle) were at the book fair this morning, signing books. Be still my racing heart.

OK, now I need to go finish unpacking the Jeep, and try to arrange things in some semblance of order.

500

This is posting #500. While I could have made number 500 be something significant, I decided instead to make it meaningless. Seems somehow appropriate.

Monthly staff meeting

Tomorrow is our monthly staff meeting, and I’m alread braceing myself for it. The purpose of the meeting, as near as I can tell it, is to lower the morale of the employees. We’re told about all the bad stuff that happened over the last month, and then carefully told how it’s our fault. And what additional duties will be added to us in order to fix the problems.

I’ve gotten to the point where I show up, tune out, and play games on my Palm.

This month, because several people were late last month, the meeting has been made 15 minutes earlier. Because, obviously, if people have trouble making it by 7:45, 7:30 is going to be easier.

Yeah. I’m looking forward to work tomorrow.

Oh, yeah, I forgot one. After the meeting, I get to take an Engineer Skills Test. I’ve been there a year, and now I get to take a test to see if I have the necessary skills to have the job. I can hardly wait.