Category: Life

Here’s a newsflash: according to CD’s aren’t selling very well.

Global music sales fell 7.6 percent in 2003 to $32 billion, the steepest decline since the advent of the compact disc

Of course, the record companies blame things like “rampant piracy.” I have my own theory – people don’t like paying for crap. And trust me, most of today’s music is nothing but crap.

While we’re on the subject of today’s music…

I was in a junior high classroom today working on a teacher’s computer.

The teacher noted that the computer was “just crap,” and all of the students in the room giggled. The teacher apologized, to which one of the students replied “it’s OK, we all say crap.” This was followed by a chorus of other children repeating the word.

In a feeble attempt to impress the kids, I added “You do know where the word crap comes from, right? The inventor of the toilet was named Thomas Crapper.” (Now that I’m back at my computer I see that I may have misled them a bit, but Thomas Crapper was a famous plumber.)

At this point a girl in the front row said “I can tell you where the ‘s’ word comes from.” Thankfully, the conversation ended there.

What else can you say about Kurt Cobain? I really believe he changed the world.

Many friends recall Cobain saying he would one day join the “27 Club” — a reference to the age Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were when they died.

Kurt Cobain, 10 years later

For Kurt Cobain, A Sleepless Nirvana

Here’s an interesting page I stumbled across earlier – Bill Gates and Petals Around the Rose. This page describes a dice game that people having been playing since at least the 70’s. It’s a fun little mental exercise.

First, you roll five six-sided dice (5d6 for the hardcore D&Ders), then you guess the answer. There are only two rules:

1. The name of the game is Petals Around the Rose, the name is significant.
2. Every answer is zero or an even number.

I did a little Googling and found a Flash version of Petals Around the Rose. With this you should be able to play the game long enough to figure it out.

It took me about 30 minutes plus a page of graph paper full of notes to finally get it.

Just be careful if you decide to do your own search, some sites give away the secret. I wouldn’t want to have to give anyone a zero on this quiz for cheating.

I got some pretty funny responses to the e-mail that I sent out yesterday. Here are a few of my favorites. I’ve left out the names to protect the innocent.

You sorry dog. I was going to be in Austin next week and look you up to buy me a drink with the money you were going to make on your new job. I was also hoping you would put in a good word for me.

I certainly hope this is an April Fool joke!!!

Oh Tony congratulations but OMG you will be missed. Knew this was gonna come sooner or later and I’m gonna go sit in a corner and cry but good
luck and give em hell. Thanks for all the support you have given me and
for putting up with all questions no matter how stupid.

You will be greatly missed. Good luck to you in your new job. I’m sure you will dazzle them with all of your computer knowledge. The district is losing a great person.

Congratulations!!! I am so happy for you!!! You will thoroughly enjoy your time in Austin and at Dell! I am priveledged to have known you and worked with you, you have taught me a lot! Take care and be sure to keep in touch! I will miss you, sir!

Something tells me I’m really going to get it next year…

Here’s the e-mail I just sent out to all of the technology people at work. Let’s see who falls for it:

As you’ve probably heard, Dell tried to outsource a lot of their support to India. When their customers started complaining, Dell decided to move some of their tech support back to the US. This created a lot of jobs in the Austin area, and I was lucky enough to get a phone interview last week.

I got a call back from the recruiter at Dell this morning concerning a job in Austin. They were impressed with my skills and experience and they want me to come work for them in server support. They will start me off at about twice what I’m currently making, and they want me to start tonight. They start the new hires off on the night shift since there’s fewer calls at that time.

I’ve talked this over with Mr. Trull and he agreed to let me use two weeks of my vacation time as a two week notice and let today be my last day. I’ll be leaving town around 4:00pm this afternoon and starting my first day of work at my new job tonight at 11:00pm.

I’ll send another message from my Dell e-mail account once it gets set up so you can add it to your address books.

Keep in touch,

Tony

Spring break is officially over now, so I’m trying to get back into the swing of things.

This was the first time in two years that I’ve actually had all of spring break off. Back when I was taking classes in Commerce I would have a week of work followed by a week of school, since Commerce and Paris never had spring break on the same week.

Paige also took off last week so we managed to get a lot done. We went shopping in Sherman and ate at Red Lobster, cooked out on the grill, visited my family at the lake, did some work around the house, hung out with Geoff, had a garage sale Saturday, and worked on some landscaping Sunday. We also spent a good bit of time on rest and relaxation.

I’m a little sad that spring break is over, but on the bright side we’re now that much closer to summer.

This is just a quick note to let my faithful readers (reader?) know that we haven’t skipped the coutry or anything like that. I just haven’t gotten around to posting anything here lately.

I didn’t do much with my computer last week since the fan on my video card was dying. I was afraid to leave it running for long since it was getting too hot. Thankfully, I got a replacement from NewEgg.com a few days ago and installed it. I documented the procedure and I’m planning on posting a howto here just in case anyone want to know how it’s done. Check back for that this weekend.

One more thing – God Hates Shrimp

Here’s some great news for anyone who’s into Stargate (like we are). In July there’s going to be a new spin-off series called Stargate Atlantis.

The SG-1 team finally finds the Lost City of the Ancients that they’ve been looking for this season. It turns out that the lost city is not through the Stargate at all, it’s Atlantis. Using the knowledge they gain in the Lost City, a new team sets off to explore another galaxy and fight a new enemy called the Wraith.

So far it sounds like it’s going to be pretty good. You can check out Scifi.com’s Press Release and the official Stargate Atlantis website for more info.

I’m not sure the tone of my voice came through in that last entry. It was supposed to be more like this:

WooHoo! I’ve got super-fast Internet! Hurray!

We had a great Valentine’s Day today. First of all, it snowed. Paige and I had a snowball fight, and we made a snowman:

And, we joined Aerofit. Ben and Paula have been bugging us to do it for a while now. We worked out for about 45 minutes this morning. There’s nothing like lifting weights and then walking out into the freezing cold.

Also, we got Valentine’s cards from Geoff. The interesting thing about them is they’re vintage super hero cards from when we were kids. Very cool.

I’ll post a few more snow pictures once I get them sorted out and resized.