Kev

It’s finding stuff like this that makes the interweeb fun to browse. Not so fun is realizing you’re a bit of a sick fuck for finding it really funny, and wanting one. I think I’ll be buying myself an early Christmas present or two. Threadless is a great idea – a place for designers/artists to peddle their ideas to folks looking for something off the beaten path without having to go somewhere like Canal Street. I like.

Also got around to ordering one of the most anticipated games to hit the Xbox this year. I haven’t used Amazon in ages, mainly because the offering in Canada doesn’t hold a candle to the US. We’ll see how the Canadian experience compares.

I’m looking forward to taking on and taking out a few friends in some online melees. It’s been a while, and fragging friends is so satisfying. Two more weeks, and then we’ll see how the Live service stacks up. In the interim, I’m hoping to play some Halo against z using Xlink Kai – here’s hoping the non-wireless approach will work.

I’ve been using the new(ish) Polar 625X, and I have to say I’m impressed. It measures pretty much anything you’d want it to while running – heart rate, speed, distance, altitude (for incline/decline info), pace, and temperature – and also works with a couple cycling attachments to do all of the above plus cadence and power measurements. It has a ridiculous amount of memory, which allows me to sample data at various intervals (I chose 5s) and track how I’m doing. The foot pod is very accurate, and I like the watch/pod combo much better than wearing a Garmin cooler on my wrist.

Good stuff, and I’m liking the Polar software, which allows me to export data in a useful format (unlike the PC Coach shit they used to include). I’ll write a review of the unit and my first couple weeks experiences this weekend. A sample graph, taken from this Sunday’s Run Club (where I group lead for a Learn to Run class) can be seen here. We’re doing eight-and-ones (eight minutes running, one minute walking) plus a two minute run. The flatline on the speed (blue) is after the run while stretching. The flat incline/decline is from the canal path, which is a very flat run. All good stuff, and it’s kinda neat to compare the graphs with where we were/what we were doing on the run. It was only a 20 minutes session, but it felt great.

My LTR class is awesome, and I can’t believe we’re at week 9 already. I think I’m going to try to teach the next one if I can.

Have I mentioned how happy I am now that I can exercise again?

This arrived in my inbox this afternoon. Maybe I’m a tiny bit cynical, becuase I found it to be one of those “it’s funny ’cause it’s true” kind of deals:

As I mature I’ve learned that you cannot make
someone love you. All you can do is
stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

I’ve learned that no matter how much I care,
some people are just assholes.

I’ve learned that it takes years
to build up trust, and it only takes
suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.

I’ve learned that you can get by
on charm for about fifteen minutes.
After that, you’d better have a big willy
or huge boobs.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t
compare yourself to others – they are
more screwed up than you think.

I’ve learned that you can keep vomiting
long after you think you’re finished.

I’ve learned that we are responsible
for what we do, unless we are celebrities.

I’ve learned that regardless of
how hot and steamy a relationship is at
first, the passion fades, and there had better
be a lot of money to take its place!

I’ve learned that 99% of the time when
something isn’t working in your house, one
of your kids did it

I’ve learned that the people you care most
about in life are taken from you too soon
and all the less important ones just never go away.

Pass this along to 5 friends…trust me,
they’ll appreciate it. Who knows, maybe
Something good will happen.

If not…tough shit.

Words to live by.

To all the people that realize “oh, shit, it’s the end of the week” and then forward escalations they’ve been sitting on all week to me at 4:30pm on a Friday afternoon: “if you see me with a ball peen hammer or adze and I’m walking towards you, it’s best get as far away from me as possible”.

Honest to god, can you not at least tell me about the issues first thing in the morning? I currently have no fewer than three escalations which have been dropped on my plate in the last 25 minutes. I can also guarantee when I call back in 45 minutes reporting everything done, those people will be nowhere to be found after successfully transferring responsibility to someone else.

Tonight, we go for the gusto, and thank their bosses for the dedication of the reps they manage. Good thing I don’t have to be anywhere before 6:30.

Ok, a couple of time-wasters, since it’s Friday.

• First, we have a clip from Whose Line is it Anyways that had me in tears.
• Next up is a flinch-inspiring video of bike couriers as they pedal maniacally around Manhattan. This clip was originally reported via the October 8th edition of memepool.com, but downloading the video took almost four hours and I wanted to save you that pain. Should the original hosters of this vid find it here, please know that I’m trying to make it accessible, not steal it.
• An overview of how Spain is dealing with bank robbers these days.
• Finally we have a nice Schoolhouse Rock kind of video drawing comparisons between pirates and emperors, with an oh-so-subtle reference to that little government South of the 49th. Well done. The link to this came via the good folks at BoingBoing, still one of my favourite places to waste some time on any given day.

Happy Friday!

Coop‘s right – My My My is a very addictive track. I’ve listened to it more than a few times, and I’m liking it a lot. If you like Dance, have a listen – recommended.

Apparently, XP will cache nameserver lookup errors. This is really stupid. I was making some changes last night and adding some entries to zones. I forgot to restart named, and was getting errors when attempting to connect to the host by name. I restarted named, still no joy, and then I started browsing logs to find out what I had mis-configured. I spent five minutes looking at everything before realizing named was fine, it was the client that had the issue.

It was only five minutes, but I’ll never get it back. I wonder what genius thought that was a good idea? I realize the client is acting like it’s own nameserver, as it uses the TTL from the domain to refresh the info, and have no problem with that. It’s the caching of errors which is stupid.

ipconfig /flushdns is your friend, should you ever run into this. ipconfig /displaydns will show a complete list of all the info in your DNS cache. I was surprised by how much info was in the cache – there’s potential there for people to track where you’ve been going from the cached lookups if you leave your computer on all the time. Clearing all the normal stuff (history, cookies, file cache, etc.) won’t clear the resolver cache, which contains a list of everywhere you and your browser have gone. Food for thought.

• diving for the disc on D, making the block, and watching the guy who thought he had a sure catch clamp down on nothing but air
• calling for the disc, blowing the shoes off a guy half your age, and catching a nicely thrown hammer from a friend in the endzone
• playing a team who drinks beer at halftime, makes jokes all through the game, and are all-around good folks
• watching how far everyone’s come in a week, a month, a season, a year, and seeing positive results and attitudes across the board
• losing a game, and still having a great time
• not crawling off the field in agony
• ice and ibuprofen, vodka and tonic

Tonight was fun. We lost 15-9, but it was one of those games that was totally enjoyable (for me, anyways). Here’s hoping my cold goes away, as I would like to get my wind – and the extra step or two that comes with it – back soon. Now it’s time for sleep, ’cause we’re getting back to Jen-o-cide tomorrow at 0700.

…and it sure doesn’t look anything like Ray Bradbury‘s classic short story, either. From the looks of the trailer, I’ll be staying far, far away from “A Sound of Thunder:” when the movie is released.

It’s one of my favorite, and most memorable, sci-fi short stories. It looks like the movies going to take all the coolness and turn it into a silly monster movie, and completely ignore the point of the original story. Blick.

Jim Caple says it best. With the NHL where it is today, and the MLB managing to hang on despite itself, my interest in pro sports is waning. Thanks for the sendoff Jim, you captured everything quite nicely.

To the Expos, a hearty farewell. It’s amazing what the players and coaching staff did over the last five years. I will always remember Staub, Raines, Wallach, Walker, Dawson, Carter, Reardon, that shit Pedro, and everyone else who made the team great in its time, and went farther than everyone thought they had a right to. Felipe and Frank deserve a lot of applause, too, as they continually did amazing things with a team that was designed to fail.

Good luck Washington, I hope you choke on them, ’cause you sure don’t deserve ’em. But hey, that’s the Selig way, ain’t it?