Geek at Play

Imagine

With the approaching of my least-favorite February Hallmark holiday, I’m happy to say that the internet has finally come up with a good way for me to avoid looking like a pathetic, lonely wank. Granted, it’ll only work if she is truly from Canada, but I’m sure that can be arranged or at least faked.

Slightly dizzy

Just as a public service announcement, hopping on the treadmill while wearing a relatively new nicotine patch would be considered a “bad idea”. However, it is a definite rush of my favorite drug.

Non-sensical

Sending the non-sensical “How sorry I am feeling” email reply (originally conceived by mjr) shouldn’t make me giggle as much as it does. But sending it to random people who decide to contact me via my website over petty concerns (such as the religious implications of “Hot Buttered Jesus“) is just too hard to resist.

Bonded Sender should work

There are a lot of anti-spam solutions out there, and a bothersome number of outspoken anti-spam zealots. I’m not outspoken, but I do hate spam. I use SpamAssassin to crush much of it, but for me, a huge worry is “false positives”. To me, IronPort’s Bonded Sender program is a good solution to the problem of losing solicited commercial email.

Read on to find out why.
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Good Gord

I just started browsing The Acts of Gord while cleaning out my inbox. A friend had sent the link to me long ago. Man, I wish I had a job where I could blog about regular people being really stupid. About the only thing that geeks get to do is send amusing, nonsensical responses to misdirected email that we get in the course of our jobs. And we don’t get to see the looks on people’s faces.

Stupid biceps

Ah, the joy of day two after your first workout in too long. The second day is always marked by complete inability to move without pain. The soreness grew all yesterday, and today my biceps refuse to move nicely. And if you want to watch me roll around on the floor in pain, feel free to come up and punch me in a pectoral muscle.

That said, I’m glad to have this pain. It’s familiar. It reminds me I’m alive. And that my physical body is doing something.

Zoom!

Yesterday I finally got my Triumph Daytona back out on the road. It’s been far too long with all the busy-ness and overworking. I had a surreal time whipping through light fog on Skyline (it was like being a cloud) and even took some time to jaw with other riders at Alice’s. I’d forgotten how much fun it was.

I’d also (apparently) forgotten that it takes a specific set of muscles to whip that 430 lbs. beast along the twisties. Now I’m sore!

Ring?

Again I’m struck by the extreme degree of connectivity I have. I’m amazingly connected, with wireless phones, infinite email addresses, and all manners of connectivity. Yet, I’ve forgotten what my cell phone ring sounds like. I belong to a couple of email lists I’m barely active on just to be sure my mail server works. I will be spending no more money on connectivity or gadgetry (no matter how cool it may be) until I have an actual reason to be connected.

Lazyass == Litigation

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate frivilous litigation. So, from that, you can infer that I think this guy should be beaten with a rubber chicken. Yes, this is exactly what I want my legal system (yes, it’s mine, I help pay for it) spending its time on.

The good ol’ days

I heard a sound clip of Ronald Reagan on the radio this AM as I was getting ready and it really struck me as special. Reading his address after terrorist attacks in Lebanon he shows that he understands better the problem of terrorism than I think the current administration does. But what struck me more was the lack of hero-rhetoric in his statement:

I do not believe, therefore, that the local commanders on the ground, men who have already suffered quite enough, should be punished for not fully comprehending the nature of today’s terrorist threat. If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this Office and with this President. And I accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good.

He knew it was his job to make sure the people around him were doing their jobs. And he knew this represented a failure on his part to recognize, evaluate and mitigate a new kind of risk. That seems like quite a contrast to todays “evildoers” and unilateral near-war-mongering. I can’t say if Bush really needed to do what he did, but he sure doesn’t sound like the humble public servant we heard in Reagan.