Author: Tom Kern

Inertia keeps… Moving up slowly

Every now and again some of my comrades in blogging will comment “Tom, I’m decided to listen to you about not blogging about work. XYZ happened and I’m glad I didn’t write about that shit”. Actually it’s been one person who has said it to me multiple times and it makes me feel good about my decision. Even if it does cut down on the amount of material I write about. Granted I have broken that rule from time to time some times worse then others but by and far I tend to stick to it.

The nice thing about about have the proverbial MAC(s) to my PC blog is that they have interesting links and seeing as how links to blogs came up at dinner on Saturday night. Granted the topic lasted all of 45 seconds but it was enough to send me to re-examine what I thought were previously static link tables.

Yep they are all pretty static except for one additional link. I’m trying to figure out how Cody came upon this person and decided to link to their very nicely done blog actually this is the sort of blog that gives me blog envy. Actually for the record it doesn’t take much to give me blog envy these days a few nicely placed pictures and a link table or two and I’m yours.

Damn if you had a C++ gui programming manual I would so be your friend.

OK so where I was going before I decided to head to tangent-ville, this blogger the “dooce” was fired from a job for blogging about work. I present to you know a excerpt from her “FAQ” section….

“I started this website in February 2001. A year later I was fired from my job for this website because I had written stories that included people in my workplace. My advice to you is BE YE NOT SO STUPID. Never write about work on the internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT WORK ON THE INTERNET. If you are the boss, however, please don’t be a bitch and talk with your hands. And when you order Prada online, please don’t talk about it out loud, you rotten whore.”

So there you go kids… that is a good enough reason to not talk about work. Well that and it’s not very intersting, no one cares, and it’s really not that professional.

Return of the Mac

Damn iLife strikes again…

I’ve been rather of jealous of Eve and Cody’s blogs for their design and function for sometime now. I’ve made a half hearted attempt to try and immitate them. Needless to say my efforts were less then fruitfull.

Tonight while surfing the Apple website looking at what comes on a Mac I look at iWeb and there is the template that Eve and Cody are using.

Or at the very least it’s a variation.

Ok really it was the banner on one of the screen shots…

Now I know the secret to their iGoodness.

WWJBD?

Today is a day of pondering, today was full of those questions that you always ask your self but they never make it past the formative stage to the fully vocal stage. Normally the questions I pose get squashed by the higher learning centers of our brains. I’m happy to report that I’ve neutralized the higher processing centers of my brain to bring you these droppings… I hope you are happy.

OK first up… automatic paper towel dispensers. Yes these lowly devices that bring you drying goodness after you have finished doing your doing your business. I find these to be odd contraptions they give you half as much material that you need to use to properly dry yourself and make you wait 30 seconds for the next bit of paper. Granted your time and amount dispensed will vary depending on which Mexican restaurant or hospital you are at. I mean honestly whats the point? I think other then driving certain people up the wall these devices have no real function.

Also in the interest of full disclosure this particular issue was brought to my frontal lobes by a consultant at work who I found reads the pile of crap known as this blog. John Smith (not his real name) this one is for you.

Ok next question… I ordered a LINUX fish from Thinkgeek, so this thing weighs damn near nothing but it comes in a box that looks like the one to the left. Now there is nothing special about this box other then it contained my LINUX fish and alot of packaging material. So my question is this why couldn’t the fine folks at thinkgeek just ship me my damned fish via a padded envelope? Is it really that hard?

Also in case you were worried that I would be putting the LINUX fish on the back of my truck. Don’t worry I might be a geek but even I have my limits. I would like to get laid again sometime in this decade.

Does Eve (the woman not the game) watch “Digging for the truth” with Josh Binswanger with the same disdain that I watch most computer and technology shows?

How could the Charges lose they have the LT!

Will the Cardinals ever come in at .500?

Will the Suns ever win a championship?

Hey look my beer.

Kill your doubt….

I don’t know if this is a me thing or not… but I find that I do my best work with music going in the background set to something like 70% of the maximum volume…. I have drink of some sort in one hand and a axe to grind in the other. That is my state of mind what I write this crap. Now admittedly my style of “blogging” is different from other people I know (E, C, C2, K, LB, Br, LL,Cx,AlS) yes these are all people that whose blogs I check on a regular basis. When I say regular basis at the very least every 48 hours it’s probably more like every 18 to 24 hours.

Most of the folks that I read have some sort story or purpose in their postings/musings. And I have to admit I find all of you amusing in more then one way or another. I think the one point of critical advice I would give any of you is there needs to be more gratuitous nudity. Yes I know the internet is for porn, but come on people we have the collective blogging experience of ~12 years and not a boob in the bunch.

By and far most personal blogs I read follow this model.

I can think of one time off the top of my head that when I sat down at the computer I set out to to take a couple of shots at one person. That isn’t to say I don’t tell stories about my day for whatever reason. But when I sit down I don’t know what is going to come out. And if your a long time reader you know that there are a couple of real gems in there… but really most of it is shit.

If Steve Jobs were to pimp this blog he would call it “iShit” and the world would go ga-ga for it.

Right now 2 maybe 3 readers are chuckling to themselves. I know who they are hopefully they know who they are too.

And what was the point of this particular post? Well I’ve been trying to figure out how to use “iShit” all day. It’s tougher then you think.

To match the sun….

I think of all the applications that I use on a regular basis iTunes has to be one of more evil ones. I don’t know why it’s more evil then Winamp it just is.

Playing w/ the old iTunes tonight I been partaking of the glory known as whiskey. Canadian Whiskey, I would like this time to call out one Nathan Opitz as a bastard before him I knew whiskey only as a drink that you drank to kill massive numbers of brain cells. Never once in my life did I imagine that whiskey could actually be good. And a sipping drink. For this Nathan you are both a saint and a bastard.

Anyway for what ever reasons I’ve been making a play list and as I look at it now I realize that I am a happy drunk (which I already knew) but I also am looking at another play list from some time ago, like fall of last year basically right after I moved down. And you know what the music on the new list is alot lighter then the music on the old list.

Hey you know what would kick ass right now? Stabbing Westward! Hmmmm shitty 90’s music… OH lets go for the really bad one… DAMMIT! I don’t have the really shitty one in itunes… and I’m not going to buy it. Oh well we shall go for a little Jane’s Addiction instead.

I often wonder what drives people… you know in the meta physcial sense of the world. What event from the past drives a person to do everything in their power to be the power behind the man? What drives a person to “go fast”, what makes someone say “I love music, but I do movies to get paid”. You know deep metaphysical shit like that.

Know what drives me? And this is going to be the single stupidest thing you have ever heard out of me… Mr. T.

I know…. Hear me out.. back in the day… you know 1984 or so… Mr. T had a couple of PSA’s on NBC Saturday morning TV… I was 4 maybe 5 at time. I remember this one PSA about never quitting and if you do quit your a automatic failure.

That one PSA more then anything drove me… I didn’t quit piano I was kicked out… actually I think the term used was something to the effect of “he doesn’t seem interested and I’m not going to keep taking your money” I was 10 or 11 when that happened.

So there you go there is the thing that drives me… I know I know… but hey at least it’s Mr. T.

Not to say that I haven’t quit stuff between now and 1984, but every time I do I have that image of Mr. T going through my head.

OK now I’m off to try and figure out how get hot CT chick to not think I’m a goof… man I have my work cut out for me.

I’m feeling in between

Logging into blogger this evening I notice that it is no longer in “beta” status… I think that this is a first for a Google application. Even more importantly I think that this is the first time that a product from google has gone through a entire life cycle. What will happen next? Gmail will actually become stable and not lose 50 messages out of the 5 trillion a day it receives? Oh MY! Google products will work across multiple platforms and web browsers and it will all work exactly the same!

I mean it’s like someone came along and created a set of standards and then someone else came along and followed those standards and didn’t try to create their own.

Of course I’ve been under the weather this weekend and broke from my normal no meds policy and did shot of nyQuill at midnight two nights ago… so that may be influencing this post. Then again so may the have drunk high ball of CC&7 sitting next to me.

What Tom’s not drinking beer? First Google brings a product out of beta and then Tom isn’t drinking a beer when he posts? The next thing I will be telling you is I found a woman!

Sadly somethings just don’t change with me.

So with it being the new year I’m supposed to make a new years resolution. Why do I need to make it on January 1? Why can’t I make it on April 1? Other then it being on April Fools? Yes it would still count. Anyway my point is you shouldn’t use the first of the year as a excuse to make a resolution to do something. Take me for instance. I swore off soda at home in March! I resolved to leave Kingman in April!! I vowed to start going to the gym in August!!! OK two out of three aint bad… Gosh I miss coke at home.

Ok now that I’ve beaten that horse .

I wish all of my loyal readers, which the latest nielsen ratings have come in and it says that my readership is up to 3.4 people with a .00000000000000000000001 market share! A happy and healthy new year and may my little corner of the intertube bring some light into your day at one point or another. And who knows maybe just maybe you will be apart of some tale of mine that gets it’s own movie like name.