2003731

Ok, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Here's the things that have gone on recently... - The people at Subway are stupid. I went in there the other day and the East Indian woman who served me just couldn't speak English well enough to take my order. An example...there is a lot of difference between "cut the old way" and "cold cut trio". Sure, i guess you can see similarities between the two phrases, but someone making food for the public, in a place that really only does one thing with a number of variations, really should be able to do better than that. The woman also didn't understand the difference between salt and lettuce. I don't see the similarity in that one. When I got to the end of the counter they had the most filthy, foot-tall, home-made garbage can sitting on the counter among the freshly made sandwiches. So, after I left there with the crappy sandwiches they made I went to the Sunway website and wrote a complaint. Someone musta got their head chewed off, because I got a phone call 12 hours later from the manager. She left a message and when I called back I got another guy, who asked that I re-explain the situation. He was obvious quite annoyed...not at the woman who couldn't speak English well enough to do her job, but at me for complaining about it. He told me she was leaving on maternity leave in 10 days (she didn't look pregnant at all, as far as I could tell through the sneeze guard). He offered me two sandwiches. I had to press him to remove that garbage can, but he finally agreed. Now...I have to decide...do I really want to go back there for two free sandwiches? - We went to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity, and it was pretty cool. I overdid it a bit and strained my back and overheated, but I felt pretty good after anyway. I'l be going back, but I hope that I won't be hauling wheelbarrow loads of gravel up and down hills again. - Diablo II is once again sucking my brain out through the 1-4, F1-F8, Alt and Spacebar on my keyboard. I'm experimenting with a Necromancer now, since I played a Paladin to level 36 before I realized how much I hated him. Now I just need to figure out how to 'mule' so I can get all his good stuff onto the Necromancer. - Dairy Queen puts way too much syrup in its Lemon-Lime Misty. My teeth hurt. Posted by Greg @ 10:35 PM PST [Link]

2003721

A followup to this HOWTO doc I wrote: If you want SpamAssassin, but don't want to mess with your MTA (ie. Postfix, Qmail, Sendmail), in either site-wide or allowing individuals to 'bow out', do the following: Install SpamAssassin (item #2 in the above) Make sure that spamd is running ('ps ax |grep spamd'). If not, read up on SpamAssassin to make sure it does. S.A. doesn't seem to do this by default, which is annoying to the extreme. Create a file called .procmailrc with the following content MAILDIR=$HOME/mail DEFAULT=$HOME/mail/Inbox LOGFILE=$HOME/mail/proc.log # Process all mail through SpamAssassin, wait for that process to finish # before continuing. # The -s on spamc assigns a size limit. Anything above that size will not # be filtered. :0fw | /usr/local/bin/spamc -s 256000 Create a .forward file (as #13 in the above doc) For users that do not want mail to be filtered through SpamAssassin, remove the .forward or rename it. Check Your Paths! - this is the number one error made! Including the startup file in /etc/init.d/, if you have one. Posted by Greg @ 03:48 PM PST [Link]

2003720

A good long time ago, I wrote a list of "things I want to accomplish in my lifetime". Now seems as good a time as any to rewrite it: Build a house - Recently I've been rethinking how to do this. A few places say building a geodesic dome home is 30% cheaper than other homes, but then I've got reasonably knowledgable friend who've said the opposite. Then there are complexities in plumbing, kitchen and bathroom building, etc. Though I think those can be overcome. As well, Rich has scared me with the ridiculousness of the home building permit structure in his area. I don't know where I can build without having to worry about permits, but considering he is on an island and the building inspectors come over from the closest town, I suspect not many places. Travel - Travelling is expensive, especially when you are saving for a house/retirement. I'd like to see Scotland and Ireland, perhaps Japan, Australia, some parts of Africa. Maybe later in life. Build a large air-visible artwork - I've been thinking about finding a large public field with a lot of reasonable-sized rocks, and created a large spiral shape. Run a small business (successfully) - Recently I've been more pushed on this...the computer industry is sucking wind very much right now. I'm working, but it's a constant struggle to stay so. While we were looking at places to live outside Vancouver I came across a house/deli/laundromat combo for $200,000 in Yahk BC. I've never been to Yahk, but the pics look nice. That sort of thing (perhaps in a few years) would make Jen and I happy, I think. Be artistic more often - Maybe take a few classes, and find a place to relax and paint. I've also considered learning to weld and making artistic iron gates. ...more to come, I'm sure. Posted by Greg @ 10:22 AM PST [Link]

2003716

I really do. The problem is, I can't think of a single time in my life where something happened exactly as expected. This even comes to the point where I am a little superstitious over it. I 'know' that when i am checking a lottery ticket, I cannot win, because while I am checking it I am thinking "what will do i do if I win?". The one time I won a decent prize (cruise for two to Alaska) I couldn't believe it. I hadn't been thinking about the raffle ticket I'd bought months previous at all. I guess I've just got to forget about the things I hope for. Happy Anniversary Jen! These 8 months have been the best in my life! Posted by Greg @ 11:45 PM PST [Link]

2003713

Interesting times on UF. As many people reading know, I am the head moderator over there. Yesterday I was required to intervene in the choices another moderator made, perhaps for the first time. I've always liked giving as much free rein as possible over the people who volunteer their time to make the board on UF a better place. So far it's worked pretty well. The comment board on UF (~1300 posts per day) is superb. It's one place on the web where people can be expressive, argumentative and intelligent without being pulled down to the lowest common denominator of posting idiots. The only other place that I would consider anywhere near the same are the boards at Straight Dope. The one big bonus of the UF boards is that they are mostly rated G. We have a rule there called the FYOS-safe rule - meaning that whatever is posted should be considered as to whether the poster would like their hypothetical 14 year old sister to read it. When something is posted it is 'moderated', though this doesn't prevent the people who -want- to see moderated posts from reading them. Actually, the ongoing joke is that a moderation makes people want to read the post more :) Back to topic...I had to deal with egos...two of them of posters, one of a moderator. Two of the people I like a lot, one is consistently pushing for arguments and backbiting, in my opinion. What ended up happening is that I hit the two users with identical punishments and made it fairly clear to the moderator that there were some flaws and personal opinions affecting what should be a fairly impartial judgement. One of the users came back, understanding that the behaviour was bad. The other decided that he would disappear, unable to work within the restrictions the board placed on his and disagreeing with my ruling. Fair enough...there are plenty of places on the internet with few or no rules for him. Posted by Greg @ 01:27 PM PST [Link]

200378

Extra work, mom-in-law is here, etc. Nothing major, but enough that the blog takes a sideline. Last night we got one heck of a good southern feed: corn, fried pork chops, green beans (w/ potatoes and bacon), spaghetti squash, and pecan pie for dessert...all made by my mother-in-law. Yesterday we spent a number of hours in Stanley park, then took a free shuttle tour around the park (taking the speed bumps at 50mph). We had a nice picnic though. Dream stuff...last night I dreamt that me and two friends of mine (here called 'J' and 'Y') were after the same girl...Donna Pinschiatti (sp?) from "That 70's Show". She turned down Y pretty quickly, and I told her to just make the decision to make her happiest. Jen woke me up before the dream finished, but I'm pretty sure she picked J in the end. Not an upsetting dream, anyhow :) Quote of today: "Mom is like the bermuda triangle" - Jen Posted by Greg @ 08:23 AM PST [Link]

200374

Jen's full writeup on our vacation Well, after the work we did on the weekend on our car, it went to a local shop and got the water pump and all the timing junk replaced. A bit expensive, but hopefully that's mostly the last work it will need for a good while. Actually, I know it need the exhaust clamps replaced and the spark plugs upgraded (cheap crappy ones in there right now, and the 'tune-up' I got a month ago wasn't talented enough to actually replace all 4 of them). Anyway, the car is running good...can't wait to see if the mileage goes back up again. It's amazing how tired you can get after a 3 day work week. I took monday and tuesday off (and am basically doing the same next week) and here it is Friday, and I'm wiped out. Kinda pathetic actually. Posted by Greg @ 08:11 PM PST [Link]

200371

183 emails in my work mailbox, 174 in my home mailbox. I should never be allowed to leave for 3.5 days again. We took a nice trip to the Okanagan to (finally) introduce Jen to my dad. Quick synopsis, then some pics. - Drove through Manning Park to Princeton, then up to Summerland to the Laur-o-Winn Bed and Breakfast - Spent a night there, went to a movie (Finding Nemo). - Went to Keremeos to visit my dad and drive up the Ashnola. - Drove to Merrit to visit my mom and have Canada Day celebrations. Pics are here! Posted by Greg @ 08:42 PM PST [Link]

LINKS and STUFF

Aspectus - This is Illiad's (of Userfriendly fame) other project, which is like Slashdot in some ways and like a personal blog in some ways, but cooler than either. Needs more content, and more visitors, but that'll come.

RED MEAT - Oh my. I imagine there is a FBI file on the artist. I never, ever want to meet him. But I will glory in his comic strip. Brilliance and intelligence wrapped up in the tattooed skin of a circus freak and tied with a bow made of blown O-rings.

Imparte.com - Rich's site. Not going to talk about it until he says I can. But go visit anyway.