I'm a Software Guy

(Alternate title:Making a Short Story Long)

I'm a software guy. My official title is "Software Engineer", but "programmer" is almost perfectly descriptive. There are differences, but I digress (digress - Latin for "will stop talking now"). Normally it might come up like this:

Non-technical co-worker:Something is wrong with my computer.

Me:What does it do.?

Non-technical co-worker:Its been smoking and making sizzling noises... since I spilled a cup of coffee from Starbuck's on it.

Me:Did you bring me any coffee?

Non-technical co-worker:No

Me:Sorry, smoking and sizzling sounds like a hardware problem. I'm a software guy.

The real lesson here is not to spill coffee on your computer. Because even had "Non-technical co-worker" brought me coffee, I could do little about it except point at the smoke and say "well there's your problem"... I'm a software guy. And the truth is as software guys go, I'm not that geeky. I've never read a Lord of the Rings book, only made it through about 40 pages of The Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy, and I've never seen a Monty Python movie all the way through (I am well versed in dropping in quotes from them though, if I weren't I could lose my job). My main hobbies are guitars and this blog... ok, maybe the blog isn't a great argument for me not being a geek, but I grew up in the 1980s, and I am sure of one thing - guitars are cool. As for me being stuck in 1987, that's another issue not related to my job, but at least I got rid of the mullet which:

• I did not know there was a name for at the time
• Did not stand out at the time
• Was probably the worst one in the history of the Northern Hemisphere
  

Most computer guys, even software guys, have really cool "bleeding edge", very fast computers. And I do too, if you live in the year 2000. Now I pretty much own an 1.1GHz boat anchor (and the new boat anchors are up to 3GHz). It is time for a new computer. Unfortunately my wife decided, I mean we decided, that we should have a so called "second child", and it turns out they're expensive to operate.

So I came upstairs tonight all ready to write a really original piece about how the Chicago Cubs seem to be in a slump for the last couple of generations, and as soon as I get into the room I can see that all of the lights on the front panel are on. I have been through this once before. The machine won't respond, I reboot it, and 5 second into the reboot, it freezes up with all the lights on. Fortunately I learned how to fix this last time:

• Take side panels off
• Start unhooking peripherals and rebooting after each one is removed. No change.
• Go to box of random electronic junk, get the multi-meter I was given for free at a trade show by a hardware guy. Use the leads to check the power supply (WARNING - DON'T EVER PLUG ANYTHING INTO ANYTHING ELECTRICAL UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING - YOU COULD BE KILLED - in fact, just forget it, let's say I really didn't do that part, yeah, I didn't do it, I just thought about it, its really immaterial to the story (immaterial - word I hope means "unrelated", but sounds more "writer-guyish").
• Turn the computer on. It works.
• Unplug multi-meter... no, wait, I never actually plugged it into anything, its dangerous. Skip this step.
• Put computer back together.
• Put meter back - I did actually get it out, I just didn't really use it as far as any readers who might hurt themselves and sue me later are concerned.

The act of plugging in, I mean merely getting out, the multi-meter convinces the computer that I mean business, and it will operate without flaw (and by "without flaw" I mean "with occasional spontaneous reboots") for a month or two.

So tomorrow, in my most serious tough guy voice, I'm going to my wife and ask "may I please buy a new computer?" And by "new", I mean refurbished. sitemeter.com now says that my blog attracts as many as four readers per day, so obviously it is important that I have one. Otherwise my current computer may realize that while I can write software, I don't even know what the hell a multi-meter is used for. I'm a software guy.

Wow, now I can wait and write about the Cubs another time.... it'll be a hoot.

Little Too Busy

It seems my so called "job" is keeping me busy at night so I don't have time to write anyting good. But I'm stockpiling ideas and sometime in the next week or so I'll be back with lots of worthless ramblings about the plight of being a Cubs fan, reality television, and why is it that the electric company advertises.

Its a shame I don't have time to write when I'm having such original ideas.

A Great Quote From George Will

"All I remember about my wedding day in 1967 is that the Cubs lost a double-header." - George Will - source

I don't really have anything else of my own to say tonight, but I saw the above quote earlier tonight, and thought it was worth sharing.

Thoughts on Lawn Darts

As best I can tell, the lawn dart was invented in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Some engineer was forced to go to a Saturday afternoon picnic and realized around 11am "an oversized, cartoon-like, horseshoe is actually not designed for flight, its no wonder it is hard to get around that post". By 4:30pm, the lawn dart was born. And by 11:17pm the local news was reporting that "a heavy, finned, metal object - sort of like a missile - should really not be thrown into the air, especially in a populated area, by somebody who had been drinking beer".

Here is the part that gets me: lawn darts were banned by Consumer Product Safety Commission on December 19th, 1988. I realize some people were hurt, even killed, but let's examine some of the things that were never banned:

• Horseshoes - I don't have any proof to back this up, but I would be shocked if somebody wasn't, at the very least, knocked out cold by a horseshoe thrown in a game. Horseshoes remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Horseshoes - I am absolutely certain that horseshoes have caused serious injury when attached to a horse's foot and kicked into a person's head. I suppose the actual problem is:
• Horses - the horse is pretty much a recreational item in our society. Horses are beautiful, sturdy animals (with incredibly soft noses, I don't know why, but that sticks with me). They are also just a little smarter gerbils, and getting kicked by one is a little bit like getting kicked by a Buick. Yet horses remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Vending machines - people are killed every year while rocking vending machines back and forth, eventually tipping them over. Late one Saturday night when I was in a college dormitory I gave somebody I had never met before a bag of microwave popcorn because I could hear he was trying to tip a vending machine that took his money while he was trying to buy popcorn. I may have saved his life that night, but one thing is for sure - I fell asleep sooner because I gave him the popcorn and he went away. Yet vending machines remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Archery Equipment - If you take a lawn dart, make it longer, sharper, and make it a projectile that is launched from a mechanized device horizontal to ground, you get a bow and arrow, which Ted Nugent uses to exercise birth control on the deer population. Yet archery equipment.... may actually be regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I'm really not sure. And yes, I have been to a family picnic where archery was involved

So what am I trying to say? Am I trying to get lawn darts un-banned? No. There are a couple of reasons - first, I simply don't care. I've never found myself at a backyard barbecue really upset that there were no lawn darts - it is a vaguely athletic endeavor and I am almost certainly bad at it. Secondly, there was a booming market for pre-ban lawn darts on eBay, but it looks like they too may have banned them now (but there is actually a lot of funny t-shirts and bumper stickers about them being banned, which just points out that nothing I do is actually original). I have a policy that when people can actually make money selling really stupid things on the internet, I don't fool around with that.

Am I trying to ban Horseshoes, Horseshoes, Horses, Vending Machines, and Archery Equipment? No. Life is dangerous, and you just have to use your best judgment, weigh risks carefully, blah, blah, blah....

Am I trying to gently point out that almost any household item used in a careless fashion could be harmful? Yes (Note: for more benign objects you may have to replace "careless fashion" with "stupid fashion" or even "stupid, idiotic fashion"- for example you can hurt yourself with a knife just being careless - but to hurt yourself with a CD case you would have to be stupid, perhaps idiotic).

Mostly, I'm just trying to be funny. If you read this please click here to and drop me an honest comment so I at least know somebody was paying attention.

"...and hey, be careful out there."

No, I Wouldn't Jump of a Bridge Because Everybody Else Did

When I was a teenager, if you had to do something you didn't want to in order to prove you were a man (which you obviously weren't), you would probably try out for the football team. I didn't do that. Come to think of it, nobody I know did. Nonetheless, I maintain that this scenario makes sense, and probably right now a teenager is trying out for a high school football team that he doesn't wish to be a member of. And if he is lucky he will gain the respect of his friends, or father, or whomever it was that he wanted to impress. If he is really lucky, he will impress girls. If he is smart, that is who he was trying to impress in the first place.

In my mid 30s I found that I felt very left out of a sporting trend, and took up a game that I really don't care that much about just because everybody else did. Golf? No - the pressure to play golf in my 30s could not possibly overcome the hatred I had for it in my teenage years. Pickup hockey? I wish, but I can only skate in a counter-clockwise circle, and I think that would probably be a disadvantage (insert NASCAR joke here). No, the feeling of being left out caused me to take up poker, which at some point became a spectator sport. Sometimes I actually find myself watching poker on television. You have to consider the following issues:

• Poker is on television nearly 24 hours a day. World Poker Tour, Poker World Series, Celebrity Poker, Speed Poker, Homeless Poker, Inmate Poker, the list goes on and on.
• I like to watch sports, because it makes me feel like I'm not just wrecking my mind watching television. I don't like basketball, football hasn't started, hockey is over for the season... and I am a Cubs fan - and the Cubs seem to be losing quite a few baseball games this season - almost 61% of them as I write this.
• But Bill, you ask, what about Soccer? What about the World Cup? Well, I'm American, so I don't really "get it". As long as I can remember, it seems like the sports media has tried to get soccer to catch on in this country, and it just doesn't happen. I have an idea, shrink the field to about 1/3 of its current size, shrink the nets too. Instead of grass, play on ice, make the players wear ice skates, change the ball from a sphere to a disc, and shrink to about 1/3 of its normal size too. There, throw in a cool trophy and you would probably have a sport I'll watch.

I don't even go to an actual poker game. You sort of picture a sitcom scene with people sitting around a kitchen table joking and playing cards, maybe somebody who takes the game a little too seriously is wearing one of those visor hats and has a cigar (I'm picturing Jack Klugman, but he rarely drops by... ok, he's never dropped by, but he is alive so its possible... I guess in the interest of honesty I have to admit that I was pretty certain he was dead until I looked him up, it really worked out better this way because the joke was really turning too morbid if he was dead. Jack - come by for dinner anytime - I'm sorry I thought you were dead). Anyway, it isn't like the sitcom scene. I just play online at a poker website. They're easy to find. Just bring up your favorite web browser, type in "www.", then randomly bash your hand against the keyboard until some letters are typed, and then follow that up by typing "poker.net". More likely than not, you will find a poker site. This is is the method I used.

Tonight I lost $400 imaginary dollars. The word imaginary is key here, because I can lose $400 imaginary dollars, and tomorrow at work when poker conversation comes up (sometimes it can take until 9:14am before the subject is broached) I can explain how I lost $400 and be part of the conversation (although the truth about tonight is just that I lost every hand I played). Had I lost $400 real dollars I would be trying to decide if it made more sense to find a part-time job or a divorce lawyer. Now I had better wrap this up before I cause myself trouble staying up to late being an imaginary writer.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

Still Joy in Mudville

OK, here is one of the pictures my camera, sans me, took at the hockey game last night. Today the web is full of pictures of the cup, blocked shots, good shots, people drinking gatorade like sports beverages out of the cup, referees skating into each other and breaking their orange tipped canes, etc. (I thought about going with a George W Bush/Sunglasses joke here, but that sentence was already too long - and why am I making fun of the refs after a win anyway? It was the hooking call actually). So here is one I haven't seen anywhere else that a co-worker I will just call "Matt" took ("Matt" is his actual name, I've yet to come up with a believable sounding rhyming fake name - and why bother? I'm pretty sure his wife knows he was at the game).

Eventually I will have to drop hockey as my main topic and go back to trying to be funny. There is very little pressure since nobody is actually reading. But for now, I'm still on the hockey kick.

When you fire a gun, it is very important to know what is behind your target. You can't just set a paper target on a box, set it in a field, and start shooting. You could accidentally eliminate some poor soul miles away - who would be operating some sort of large piece of farm equipment, and then drive it through several houses and across a highway. Which isn't normally humorous because of the tragedy of the accidental shooting. In this case however, the person operating the farm equipment lives and makes a full recovery... in fact the conversation he has with the insurance adjuster is a hoot. See - its funny now, right? I don't know what happens after that because I picture it as an 80's style sitcom where the credits roll right after a funny line between the farm equipment driver and the insurance adjuster.

Why do I bring this up? During game one of the Stanley Cup Finals, defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron of the Edmonton Oilers hit Arron Ladd of the Carolina Hurricanes. Had he hit Ladd against the boards, it would have been a really hard hit that would have left Ladd rattled for a few minutes and a little sore the next day. Unfortunately what was behind him was Edmonton's number-one goalie Dwayne Roloson. Roloson was injured and unable to play the rest of the finals. Jussi Markkanen did a terrific job, eventually gaining a shutout. But the Oilers lost in seven games, and right now they're examining everything that went wrong.

Today Bergeron received several boxes - they contained all of the "Edmonton Oilers 2006 Stanley Cup Champion" hats, t-shirts, commemorative pucks, placemats, urinal screens, etc. that had been printed already. Also, there was a note "Please sell these items on eBay and buy everybody enough golf balls for the summer".

If you read this please leave an honest comment so I know somebody is paying attention - I might try harder next time.

There is Joy in Mudville...

...and I'm watching from home. At this point the game is over, I'm just watching the joy. I'm not sure why the kind of "joy" that ensues after somebody wins a sports championship usually involves a car that will never move under its own power again.

I could have gone. I had my jersey, I had the camera. All I had to do was be the first one to tell the person with the left over ticket "I'd like to go", but for some reason I just couldn't do it. I wasn't sure why - I thought it might be too "tense". So a co-worker I'll just call "Matt" (because that's his name and I'm not protecting the innocent) took the ticket. "Matt" is such a good guy he re-offered me the ticket if I wanted to go, but I wouldn't have done that. He's a good guy to ask though. I gave him my camera, so maybe tomorrow I'll have pictures of actual hockey players instead of my nine-month-old. But this picture was necessary, I'll get to that in a minute.

So I watched the game at home, with my wife and three-year-old (who I will call my wife and three-year-old because I'm not sure I want to publish their real names and I'm too tired to come up with good rhymes), who absolutely would not go to sleep. Thankfully, the adorable guy pictured above did. Anyway, with about four minutes left in the game, it dawned on us that this was something the three-year-old should see. So he came out on the couch with us, watched the end of the game, and they won. As a Cubs fan, I wasn't sure I'd ever pull for a champion, so this was a big deal for me. My first thought, "I'm glad I didn't go, it might have been tense". But I didn't really feel bad for watching it on TV. I remembered my folks letting me stay up when the Cubs won the National League East Division in 1984 (by the next time the Cubs won a division, I was old enough to be drafted and could pretty much stay up if I wanted).

We had explained to three-year-old that if the "red guys" won, they got a big cup. They brought it out, skated it around, just like every other year (except last year), but this year my team won. Very exciting. Lots of high fives sitting on my couch. I threw in a video tape to get the post game hoopla - I didn't dare get one ready ahead of time.

I got three-year-old to bed, and couldn't wait to write this. I was excited to use my line about "Joy in Mudville" (read the description on the left, it says right there I'm a hack).

Somewhere around there it dawned on me, I watched the game exactly where I wanted to watch it, with exactly who I wanted to watch it with, I was just too stupid to realize it until half an hour after it was over. And there's a lesson in there, I'll try not to forget it.

So, the fat lady sang. And she sang "Carolina In My Mind". Or maybe it was "Tobacco Road". Or maybe that "C'mon C'mon C'mon, Let's Go Canes!" song.

Now - on to the funny stuff - theories why the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in seven games:

• See the picture above. This adorable, innocent, little guy wore this outfit all day without having to have it changed due to some sort of biological incident. What could be better?
• My friend who I will call "Barry" (because that rhymes with his real name) did not find himself face-to-face with a scary looking black cat while he urinated in the woods (well, I don't think he did, I honestly haven't talked to him)
• The Hurricanes "Played their game"
• The Hurricanes "Put the puck in the net"
• It had to go seven games so I could watch it at home with my family
• That empty net goal at the end pretty much sealed it
• I didn't put a tape in the VCR until the game was over
• Cam Ward stopped pretty much everything that came his way
• Erik Cole came back from a fractured vertebrae (this is a nice way of saying broken neck)
• My friend who I'll call "Dennis", because that is his name and I can't come up with anything that rhymes with it, grilled the good hot Italian sausage while tailgating. The hot Italian sausage is now 2-0 when it is game 7
• Peter Laviolette is some sort of hockey genius
• The home team has won game 7 the last 19 times there has been a game 7
• Glen Wesley - A guy who is so willing to lay down in front of a [fast] moving puck deserves to win eventually.
• We sang "O Canada" at the arena in Raleigh - this one probably isn't why the 'Canes won, they sang The Star Spangled Banner in Edmonton. But it is nice to see.

The Carolina Hurricanes are the 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!

As always, for actual intelligent hockey coverage, I recommend Ron Francis' Blog.

I Have Nothing Nice to Say

I have nothing nice to say about tonight's hockey game. And when I have nothing nice to say I figure it makes sense to turn to two time Stanley Cup champion Ron Francis. He usually has something nice to say.

And to those of you who said hockey would never catch on in North Carolina, look at this picture I took Wedsnesday night at game 5. There is the proof you are wrong... Or maybe its the proof you are right. I'm not sure anymore.

But I am sure about this - the fat lady will be singing in Raleigh Monday night. Whether she's singing O Canada or Carolina In My Mind is all that remains to be seen.

Music trivia - what Beatle played on James Taylor's self-titled debut album? Click here and see the answer near the bottom of the page.

Game 6 Tonight

I have been a baseball fan since I was twelve. That's a little late I suppose, but nobody in my family was a baseball fan. But ever since then, I've been a Chicago Cubs fan. I'm no stranger to disappointment. The great thing about the Cubs is that more often than not they disappoint you by missing the playoffs altogether (but not always). So as a Carolina Hurricanes fan today is a lot more tense for me.

However, I can say this: As a Cubs fan, I am willing to sacrifice the Boston Red Sox entire season for a win tonight.

Also - I have learned that the fat lady with the good voice did travel to Edmonton and will be in the stadium tonight. Nobody knows if she'll be singing or not.

Game starts at 8:00pm EST.

The Quest for Lord Stanley's Cup

The coolest trophy in all of sports is The Stanley Cup. Care to argue? I don't. I am right.

Most sports give trophies every year. The Stanley Cup remains one single trophy, yet it changes a little bit every year. Each season all of the winning players have their names engraved on the cup (some of the longer player's names are actually continued on the next cup). Finally, as it fills up the rings are retired and put in the hockey hall of fame. So a player's name stays on the cup about 52 years.

Personally, I am a fan of the Carolina Hurricanes. The 'Canes had a chance to lift Lord Stanley's Cup this past Wednesday, but couldn't seal the deal. Why? There are several theories:

• While tailgating a friend went to relieve himself in the nearby woods (because the lines were slightly shorter there than at the port-o-potty), and right in the middle of things found a black cat staring at him. (No animals were harmed while writing this post)
• During the singing of O Canada, an over-zealous fan shouted out "THE CUP IS OURS!!!". I just felt this was rude, and thought at the time I would blame him were the Canes to lose the game.
• My wife watched part of the game at her cousin's house. I watched one baseball game in that house, and it is the only sporting event more disappointing to me than Wednesday night's contest. (NOTE: I don't blame Steve Bartman for the fairly natural act of catching a ball - there was a very Bill Buckner-esque play after that, and there was a game 7 too)
• Fernando Pisani intercepted a soft pass from Bret Hedcan and beat Cam Ward for the first ever shorthanded overtime goal in an NHL final game.
• I turned on the camera. When the 'Canes won, I wanted that celebration picture. You know, the one where the players all gather together and pat each other on the head? I thought it would be a great picture to show people right before the one of Rod Brind'Amour raising the cup. But I shouldn't have turned the camera on. Here's the picture that I didn't take (I linked to it from somewhere else, I hope that's legal. Also I hope that the picture is still there).

So, somewhere there's a fat lady with a good voice just waiting to see what happens. I'm not sure if she's actually at the game or not, they might not make her go unless it goes to game seven.

For actual intelligent commentary about the Stanley Cup playoffs, please see Ron Francis' Blog. He not only used to play hockey, his name is on that trophy a couple of times.

Thoughts on The Muppet Movie

Since I have a three year old son, from time to time I re-watch The Muppet Movie . Ok, I would still watch this movie once a year on my own. It is a good movie, with a lot of adult humor in that you didn't get when you were a kid.

I still think one of the funniest lines ever is Rowlf the Dog explaining to Kermit "I finish work, go home, read a book, have a couple of beers, take myself for a walk and go to bed". You could never say that in a movie these days a get a "G" rating. Things are just different now, and I think people would be more sensitive about mentioning beer in a children's movie.

However, I don't think that it matters. I doubt this ever encouraged any other puppet dogs dogs to drink beer. Probably not any real dogs either.

I Didn't Want a Blog

I didn't want a blog (blog, short for weblog, which is Latin for "my Saturday nights are usually free"). I wanted to be a humor columnist. This is nothing against blogging, but working the software industry I generally associate them with the sort of "online journals" (journal - male for "diary") that some companies actually encourage their employees to keep. I actually think this is cool, but it isn't what I was trying to do. I was trying to be some sort of composite of the humor columnists that I grew up reading - who incidentally are all retired or dead. I guess I figured there was an opening.

One big difference between a blogger and a humor columnists is that humor columnists get paid, which I thought was a pretty good goal for the future, because I like money. Well, it isn't really that I like money, so much as that I like guitars and digital gadgets, and money is the preferred method of acquiring these. So for a while I wrote a column somewhere that nobody I didn't give a link would ever find it, and referred to myself as an Internet humor columnist - which is loosely defined as a somebody who is too chicken to go tell jokes at an open mic night, but hopes that somebody might pay him to write someday. A friend pointed out that what I was doing was a blog, and it would be easier to do it at a proper blogging site because the software is better suited to the what I am actually doing.

So here goes... hopefully they will get better as time goes on. If you actually think anything is funny, please tell me. If you don't think so, I want to hear that too (I'm expecting more in this category). If you want to sell me any sort of pill that will affect the size of my toe, this isn't even my email address (Note: when I use bold, italics, and underline together, that sometimes means that isn't the "real" word, that is a "television edit" - picture it in a different voice, like on TBS)

So, here is tonight's worthless observation:

I believe Van Halen is the greatest American rock band ever. Want to argue about it? I don't, that's why I prefaced it with I believe. It is art, you can believe anything you like about it, but this is what I believe.

Tonight, David Lee Roth was on The Tonight Show singing a bluegrass version of Jump. Normally right here I would put a funny definition of "bluegrass" in parenthesis, but I sorta used up tonight's good stuff on the introduction. Its late, I'm tired, and that "Oh the humanity!!" thing from when the Hindenberg crashed keeps playing in my head.

There is a song by the band Drive By Truckers (who are cool by the way, try them out), where the lyric mentions the fact that "the secret to a good ending is knowing when to roll the credits". I am not certain where "the right spot to roll the credits" was, but Diamond Dave missed it. I'm really sure of one thing, "the right spot to roll the credits" occurred several years before I ever saw a bluegrass cover of a Van Halen song.