Saturday (July 30th) — weather permitting — the wHOReS Walk-In Theater will be presenting a double feature of 1970’s to 1980’s adult targeted animated feature length flicks.  The guaranteed fist feature will Rock & Rule (because it finally made it to DVD and I’ve been waiting a long time for that).  The second feature will be (pending availability in the local stores) Wizards.  Options for an alternate second feature are American Pop, Heavy Metal and Fritz the Cat.  You might notice that three of the five movies are Ralph Bakshi projects, and that can only mean a gritty, perverted experience. Our kinda thing.

This is definitely not an evening for the kiddies, but the immature are more than welcome.

Wow, we are the rank amateurs of insult and humiliation as compared to a particular group of Koreans.

The upshot is this: this chika has her dog on a subway train, it takes a nasty, watery shit on the floor and when she is asked to clean up her dog’s mess she basically tells everyone to fuck-off.  Someone on the train snaps her picture and posts it to a popular website and all hell breaks loose.  Someone knows who she is and identifies her, she’s harassed, her parents are harassed, there are parodies of the pictures circulating everywhere… StarWars-Kid all over again, except with a purpose. 

The moral of this story is this: if you’re rude to a train full of people, you need to kill them all to make sure you aren’t crucified later for being a complete and utter horse-scrotum.

And to quote the ultra-geek who placed a comment on that other page (right or wrong, I just love his analogy):

"This is not punishment.  This is personality hacking.  She is an error in the social program, which happens to be open source.  We all contribute.  The socially conscious "hacker" that posted the error, is merely attempting to utilize the net to affect a correction for this faulty code.  I would say that this error would not occur again.  This was an effective patch for the error in the program.  I would like to see more patches of this type.  In fact, a worldwide error reporting system should be initiated."

Well, after an eternity of putting it off I’ve finally decided to go through the huge cache of computer parts I’ve been slowly gathering over the years.  I’m keeping the bare minimum that I could conceivably put to some profitable use in my business and selling the rest off on eBay by the lot.  Or, in the case of not selling it, putting it out for Goodwill or Bridgehouse to come and collect in exchange for a tax-write-off for me.

In any case, I’ve just given myself the fast-track-crash-course in "How to sell shit on eBay."  I’ve got 20 auctions going as we speak.  Damn, that was a lot of crap to photograph, catalog, write up descriptions and fine-tune.  I spent two straight, very full days doing just that.  I even set up a makeshift photography studio in the living room.  I know, I’m OCD to the core.

I spent the three days prior going through crate after crate of computer equipment.  Some of this gear is Smithsonian grade.  I mean, they found a few of these VGA cards right next to the Rosetta Stone when they dug that sucker up.  Mind you, there’s bound to be someone out there who can give them a good home, regardless of the age… there are other people who, unlike me, put their pack-ratted computer gear to work.  Sure, I use some of it, but not much of the older stuff anymore.  You watch, there’s gonna’ be some 15 year-old kid in Topeka, Kansas that’s gonna’ assemble a new, more efficient combine harvester that will run on collected oxygen and till crops in the desert for pennies a day — and he’ll do it with that old Pentium 100 he bought from me.

Well, at any rate all I should have to do for the next 7 days is baby-sit these auctions and prepare to package and ship anything that actually gets sold.  Joy.

Entertainment Weekly has finally figured out something we all already knew… that Samuel L. Jackson’s character pretty much gets killed in most every movie he’s in.  So, in tribute to his role in the latest Star Wars movie, they list and grade his top 10 deaths.

Check it out.

In honor of the last of the Star Wars prequels coming out this week, I present to you Store Wars.  It’s so bad, it’s good.  Actually, it’s pretty well done, but I bet you all let fly at least one moan at it’s utter cheesyness.

Of course our resident hippies are going to love it because it’s the Organic Trade Association having a go at brainwashing us non-tree-hugging consumers.

This is a long read, so pop some corn, get a drink and make yourself comfortable.

So after the whiz-bang fireworks of being downsized, the fact remained that I was unemployed.  Needless to say I wasn’t pleased about the whole situation (to my knowledge nobody likes to get fired from a job they more or less enjoy), but I’m a reasonable and intelligent person.  I’d been through this once before ten years back when I was a contractor for the State — I came back from my honeymoon to find out my contract wasn’t renewed… and to think, I didn’t even send them a "thank-you" card for their lovely gift.  I freaked out then, but I was determined to not freak out this time.

Hard times are a fact of life.  They come in many forms, some more painful than others — the death of a father or a brother for example — losing a decent job is pretty easy in comparison.  They come with increasing frequency as you get older.  It’s how you deal with them and escape in the end that molds you.  You can let it tear you down like a house of cards or you can weather the storm and patch up the broken bits after the wind has ebbed and the sun has come from behind the clouds.  That is where strength and maturity comes from… learning how to semi-gracefully shovel away the shit that gets dumped on you from time to time.  That is not to say one shouldn’t be upset about these things, just don’t let it ruin your life.  As I am all too fond of saying (and I’m sure that lots of folks are tired of hearing it): "this too shall pass."

After spending a few days gathering my thoughts and steeling myself for one of the things I most hate in life, I went about the inevitable task of looking for gainful employment.  I polished up the ‘ol resume and started spamming it to the people who professed a need for someone of my accumulated skills.  Jebus, I hate having to sell myself to someone who needs a pigeon to stuff into a very specifically created pigeonhole.

I have no formal technical education and the barest of professional certifications, but by-god I am good at what I do.  Most employers like to hedge their bets and hire someone who has shown the gumption to go to and graduate from a four-year institution.  That demonstrates (theoretically) irrefutable proof that they have some of the basic skills they need — reading comprehension, writing, basic math and hopefully something pertaining to the field they are hiring for — rather than putting all their eggs into an interview or two and hoping for the best.  There are many fields that this is not so bad, aerospace engineering for example, but others that it’s a bit of a waste.  I’m quite sure that my resume was round-filed quite a few times after it was seen I didn’t have a degree, regardless of the fact that I have over thirteen combined years of experience in the field of computers and network administration.

There have been a few interviews, one of them went moderately well but never resulted in a call-back and another one was like taking the SAT… very formal, with little room for personality and I actually had to grade my own skills on specific topics on a scale of 1 to 5.  Frankly, I’m sick and tired of the whole thing, but the unemployment payments will only last for so long, they aren’t all that much to begin with and frankly the whole system is a cluster-fuck (that is material for another post altogether).

So, I get a call the morning of a particularly dismal interview.  Someone I know rather well has need for some technical work, and since I have the time on my hands would I like to get paid to do it?  Damn right I would.  While en-route to the site I feel myself slipping back into the old comfortable mode of site-technician, like putting on a metaphor you found in the back of the plot-device and hadn’t worn for three years.  A cozy and nicely broken-in metaphor that still fits astoundingly well.  Shockingly, I missed this kind of work.

I did site consulting for a local tech shop for nigh onto nine years and I was good at it.  I left the job for another that afforded my own desk, phone and computer — I could have roots and a place to call my own that nobody could boot me off of to use for their own during the course of the day, and a boss that basically wasn’t laughing in my face every time I asked for a raise while pointing out that I was his top and most requested tech that remained booked for well over two weeks in advance.  I would have special responsibilities and servers and stations that were part of my kingdom.  Eventually I had two of my best pals working beside me, and I had a part in helping them get the jobs that they seemed to enjoy.  I loved that job, I really did.  It wasn’t without its problems, nor was it the dream environment I was promised, but it wasn’t too bad in spite of all that.

But…

Without knowing it, I also missed going to a customer’s site and bringing down the Hammer Of Justice on any technical problems they were having.  I enjoyed building new networks from the ground up.  I loved being assaulted by new and interesting challenges on a daily basis.  It kept me sharp.  It kept me up-to-date.

By nature I’m a problem solver, I really enjoy being helpful to people, I’m a perfectionist and a jack-of-all-trades… all of which is an absolute must for technicians but in everyday life can be annoying as hell to everyone else as it makes me come across as an intrusive, pushy know-it-all.  I tell you all right now to "deal with it" because at one time or another everyone has come to me for help because of those same abilities (which I have obliged freely), and I genuinely mean no harm by my actions and behavior.  You love the perfectionist when he’s helping you, but when he needs help you bitch and moan because he’s so particular.  Suck it up.

Anyway, I felt the spark again.  Two weeks earlier (while still looking for a job), I had bemoaned the fact that I would love to go into business for myself, but I lacked the client base to pull it off.  No clients, no money, no way.  I have a house note and a multitude of other obligations that require me to be paid on a regular basis, and I promptly let the idea drop.  That day I went off to do the on-site consulting I had made up my mind… I was going to go for it.  I did a few calculations and was shocked.  I might be able to pull this off.

I am now self-employed.  I am a computer consultant and I will do business with home and commercial clients alike.  I can perform anything from the simplest repairs to the most complex network engineering.  My rates are quite competitive.  I am also asking you, my friends, to pimp me out to anyone and everyone you know: your boss, your co-workers, your professional contacts, your personal contacts, your brother, your mother, the guy at the coffee shop… anyone.  Contact me for details — I even have business cards now.

With the help of my friends, other professional contacts I have and the word-of-mouth of happy clients, I can build a solid client base and succeed at this.  I’ll have the best of both worlds — a desk, computer & phone all my own, and being able to go on-site and face the new challenges that make my blood sing.  I have no one to answer to but myself and I can work at the high level of integrity I enjoy.  It’s both a frightening and exhilarating prospect and I think I’m up for the challenge.

Time will tell.

I read an article a few weeks back about a do-it-yourself (henceforth known as "DIY") lasertag system.  The general upshot is this:

Don’t go to a polite, enclosed indoor establishment and use the crappy guns against even crappier opponents (mostly asshole kids) in a small, unchanging environment.  If you do you only get to play a non-goal oriented game for all of seven minutes at a time before you have to stop and ditch your randomly selected equipment and start all over again.  The only other options are to shell out big bucks for a "private party" after hours where you still use the crappy guns in the same unchanging environment, or buy an off-the-shelf system from Wal-Mart which is not only cheap in price, but cheap in construction, limited in features, range and looks like it should be featured on Sesame Street — the "Tickle Me Lasertag" system.

Instead, spend those extra bucks and build your own gun (hence the DIY part of the equation) with more sophisticated electronics and modeled after your favorite firearm, or even one that doesn’t exist (i.e. the Pulse rifle from Aliens).  You can even build specialty weapons like shotguns with a shorter range but a wider field of fire, pistols that are lighter and less cumbersome to carry, and sniper rifles with an incredible range.  Your arena can be wherever you are cleared to play, be it private property or public land (permission to be asked for and granted first, or course).  This can lend itself to urban assault scenarios, capture the flag, last man standing, etc. all in an expanded and sometimes dynamic environment.  Your co-players are all people serious and interested enough to build their own weapons, increasing the likelihood that your games will be fun and adventurous.

Think of it as paintball without all the pain, mess or recurring ammo charges.

I know what you’re thinking — "Oh great, BUILD my own gun?  How the hell do I do that?  I don’t know a soldering iron from a nine-iron."  Not to worry.  Much.  The system I’m most interested in is MilesTAG, which is based off of the US military’s M.I.L.E.S. wargame system.  It is open source and fairly popular in the DIY lasertag community.  Jim Robertson (the developer) is nice enough to provide the code and schematics that make the brain, heart and soul of the gun system for free — hence "open source" — and he is currently working on the fifth revision of the system now.  This is the one I am going for as there are a number of dramatic improvements implemented.  He has released the schematics but not yet the code, and that’s dandy because I have my plate full with just that.  I’m currently in the process of researching the proper materials and components to build the circuit, including a few improvements of my own.

What does this mean to you, my adventure loving cohorts?  Well, it means that I am willing to do all the homework and footwork towards building guns for DIY lasertag.  I have the capability to make custom circuit boards, I have connections with electronics providers and I have an uncanny knack for fabrication.  Ultimately it means that I will be building the circuits to create the guns around.

What this does NOT mean to you my opportunistic pals, is that I will not foot the bill for anyone to have a gun.  It does not mean that I am going to build your gun for you.  I am doing the hard part, the research and the circuitry.  I am more than willing to assist and partner in building your gun, but you are going to reimburse me for the cost of circuit materials and further, purchase the rest of the items yourself.  Sounds like a fair deal to me.

What this means to me is the possibility of a tremendous amount of fun, not only playing some homebrew lasertag but doing all the fiddly bits involved in actually building the weapons.  What this also means to me is another good reason to get together with my friends and have a good time.

The overall cost is minimal.  I’m trying to keep the circuit price below $75… closer to $50.  The cost of the gun itself is up to you and how elaborate you wish to make it.  Of course, I will accept any and all assistance with regard to circuit assembly and gun design when the time comes (and we’re still a little bit away from that).

I want to know your thoughts on this.  Am I spinning my wheels uselessly as nobody is interested in joining me in this endeavor?  Is this the coolest thing you’ve heard of this year and you’re on-board too?  You let me know.

This Saturday, March 19th, there will be not one, but two — count ’em, TWO — parties at the wHoReS.  Ok, it’ll be two parties back-to-back to make one stupendously big party, but two parties none the less.  And to top that, it’s a double birthday celebration, too!

We are celebrating (in an official manner) Mensa’s birthday, which was actually on Wednesday.  There will be the obligatory fun and mayhem involved, but it was originally scheduled for the evening.  Ghoti wanted to have a crawfish bug-boil on Saturday as well to help ring in Camille’s birthday (which is actually on Saturday), but that would have started earlier in the day.

So Ghoti (or some female genius who will be marrying him, but shall remain unnamed to keep her adoring fans away from her) came up with the idea to join the two and have the whole big shin-dig at the wHoReS.  So, there will be a span of daylight hours eating hard-shelled critters and chilling followed by an evening of hard drinking and shenanigans.

The festivities start at 12:00 noon.  Come dressed for warm/cold/dry/wet weather.  We do request that folks bring a little something to contribute to the shindig… soft drinks (Coke, Diet Coke and Barqs Root Beer), snacks or anything you deem appropriate.

We’ll see you miscreants there.

Yup.  Going STRAIGHT to hell for laughing at THIS.  Out loud.  And I snorted like a piggy.

Here’s a quickie for you: a late Victorian era guide on how to whup the crap out of someone using a walking stick, cane or umbrella.  Very martial arts-y for the time.

Part 1 and Part 2

I for one dig the illustrations.