Wow! I keep forgetting I have this

This poor blog... It's languishing away because I keep forgetting it (and the others) are here.

Accidentally deleted comments

Crap! I know few people (if any) read this blog but, just for accuracy and completeness, I was trying to delete spam comments from one of my other blogs, I accidentally deleted a boatload of comments from here.

Tying up loose ends

Right now I want to update the situation WRT the ladies. The Together Dating just didn't pan out. I got so behind in January that I couldn't catch up. And if you don't send back the evaluation report from the date they take you off the active list. OC they have no problem continuing to bill me. The fine print is for me to continue to pay something like $68/mo for two or three years, regardless of whether I'm active or not. It all reminds me of the rant Leo Getz did about doctors in Lethal Weapon 3.

That leaves the situation with my Chinese lady friend. She wanted to try a more romantic relationship but it just didn't work out. I kept failing tests that I had no idea I was taking. I'm told that this is a very common experience for men. Example; she had a problem with her toilet. It would flush on it's own every so often. She called to ask what she should do. Well, I went through this with one of the bathrooms in the house we owned before the divorce. The solution was to have the inner guts replaced. See, I wasn't a handyman even before my hands stopped working right. If something breaks I call someone who is a professional at fixing said problem and all is well. I relayed this to her but she didn't want to call a plumber. Ok, fine. The next day I found out that this was a test. I was supposed to come over and help her when she called. How am I supposed to do that? I have a young boy in bed and I have to much pain to move in the first place. There was nothing I could have done in going over there but doing so would be a tremendous cost in energy and pain. This is why I didn't even offer. BZZZZZZZT, that was the wrong answer for this test. There were one or two more of these kind of tests that I also failed. So she decided that with all the things going on in her life with work and her daughter it wasn't a good time to get involved. And, due to my poor showing in the tests, she didn't feel that I was the right man for her. At first I wasn't all to happy about this, feeling that the fairness of the tests was a tad lacking. But after thinking about it some I came to realize that it wasn't going to work anyway. There were signs... The biggest one was that she would often call or email asking for advice on something that's happening in her life. I would give her some advice and try to point out as many different ways to go as I could. She would then just do whatever it was she had wanted to do even before she'd asked me. But the more fundamental problem was that she didn't understand the kind of pain I am in every moment of every day. Even if I thought of going over to look at her plumbing (no pun intended) the cost in pain and energy couldn't be overcome for that situation. Ergo, no go. We still keep contact and hopefully we can still get together on occasion as I do enjoy her company and her daughter is really cool. But we'll just have to see what comes of it.

And that's pretty much it. There's really no other options for me to pursue WRT women. There's always the chance of lightning striking but the odds against that are, as Spock might say, astronomical.

Monopoly != me

Last night I was playing Monopoly with my son. We had a really fun time of it. He completely kicked my @$$. I mean I got SPANKED! The funny thing is that a few roles of the dice before he dominated me he was ready to give up the game. See, I had far more property than he did, including three with hotels on them. He only had one with a hotel and one with two houses but he did have three railroads. Now, if you've played Monopoly much you know that when you have a lot of property and hotels you don't have much liquid assets (i.e. cash). I was in just this situation. Well, you can guess what happened... I landed on his hotel. In order to pay the rent I had to sell all of my hotels and mortgage 75% of my property. The next roll had me land on another one of his properties with buildings. I was done for. Even mortgaging the res of my property didn't give me enough to pay. I was blown out of the water (wait; that's Battleship... Different game). Needless to say he was very happy. I reminded him that he was just about to give up and quit. Had he done so, he'd never have stomped me.

This is a pattern I've seen with him since forever (or 8 years, whichever is closest). He will try something, complain it's to hard and try to quit. He's done this with most of the PS2 games he plays. Of course, once he plays them for a little bit he becomes damn near invincible. My hope is that I can get him to always look at life in this way. If something seems to be unbeatable just keep hammering away at it. You'll eventually overcome any obstacles. It would be a little easier, though, if he didn't see his dad chewed up and spit out by the world.

I've been doing all I can to shield him from the fact that we are just about homeless with no light on the horizon. Now, I'm going to keep plugging away the best I can. But I see that the best I have isn't good enough. Just a little break, that's all I'd need to bounce back. A job; a mate; decent assistance laws or even most of my health back. Any one of these would be enough. They just look as attainable as the moon right now.

Who's who and who cares

In regard to my earlier post, I am going to expound on the world of Open Source. Specifically some of the so-called luminaries in that world. Let's take a look at four of the big names; Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Bruce Perens, and Eric Raymond (to be known as Linus, RMS, Perens & ESR respectively). We'll start in the middle.

RMS: What can be said about him that hasn't already been said? Here's my opinion on him. He's an extremist fruitcake who is a vital part of the whole software industry. He's so far out on his end of the spectrum that he balances things out. While he can be exasperating at times, he is probably the most important person in the Open Source world. Score: B-

Perens: Bruce is very good at starting projects. Often the projects he starts are good ones that could be very beneficial to the world at large. However, I have not seen him actually complete anything. That's not to say he has never completed something, just that I've not seen it. He does have some very good ideas and has been good for the Open Source world on whole, though. Score: C-

ERS: $DEITY don't get me started. Well, I already got myself started so here goes. ESR is very smart (as are all of the people on this rant) and has had some good ideas (The Cathedral and the Bazaar, for one) but he's done almost as much to hurt Open Source as to help it. He doesn't know where to draw the line between an IT/IS professional and a flaming zealot. Honestly, I know a number of people who would be much better "spokesman" that he is. Score: D

Linus: Now we come to the only one of these guys that I have actually met. It was just a short face-to-face after one of the sessions of USENIX back in the mid-90's. Linus is one of the most mellow people I know in this industry. It seems that part of being an uber-techie is having an explosive personality. This doesn't mean Linus has never flamed away. If you look through some of the lists he's on you can find some very chestnut warming posts. But he doesn't let his non-techie life get to mixed up with his techie life. Plus, there are many people who look at him in an almost godlike way. Most people finding themselves in this kind of power situation would be prone to believing the press and assuming godlike attitudes. Linus has been able to keep a level head amongst the adulation for over a decade now. This is an admirable quality. Score: A+

Well, there' my first OPA post. And remember, I am always right!

Deserter Charles Jenkins Visits U.S.

Deserter Charles Jenkins Visits U.S.
Associated Press
June 13, 2005

"TOKYO - Charles Jenkins, a U.S. soldier who deserted his Army unit 40 years ago and fled to North Korea, and his Japanese wife left their home in northern Japan on Monday for his first visit to the United States since he turned himself in late last year.

Jenkins was scheduled to fly to Washington D.C. on Tuesday after spending a night in Tokyo. He has said he has no plans to move to the United States, but has repeatedly said he wants to see his 91-year-old mother, who lives in a nursing home in Roanoke Rapids, N.C.

He was expected to stay in the United States for about a week."

A Snake of June

I won't call this a review but more like impressions of the Japanese film whose English title is A Snake of June.

I bunch of months ago, when I was still using Blockbusters movie-by-mail service, I rented it. I thought by the description that it was kind of an erotic thriller but it was actually closer to soft-core porn. However, the really noticeable thing was that the movie didn't make any sense. At least it didn't to me. Now I'm not one to claim that I can understand everything I come across but I usually find something that I can make sense of in just about any movie I've seen. This was an exception. It probably made more sense to Japanese speaking audiences but I'd find it difficult to believe that anyone could completely grok this movie. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. There are plenty of good, enjoyable movies where you can't make head-nor-tail of the plot. The theatrical version of The Big Sleep being the one that comes to mind at the moment. The acting in Snake was probably quite good. I couldn't really tell because I was to busy trying to figure out what the hell just happened to spend time noticing that. And maybe it would have been easier if I didn't have to read subtitles as well. But I've watched a good number of movies in non-English languages having to read subtitles and been able to follow the plot and enjoy the acting and directing and such. Crouching Tiger is a good example. The plot is not very straight forward but it was a real joy to watch this movie. The original French version of La Femme Nikita is another. Both of these are complex movies that move as a good clip, especially Nikita, but I was able to stay with them and also notice the acting and directing as well as many of the other non-spotlight awards given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Anyway, this is just something that's been nagging at me for months. Again, this isn't a review, just my impressions.

Comments on the Canadian GP

This was a very enjoyable and unpredictable race. Right from the beginning you could tell something was up. After the disastrous turn last race coming off the two race suspension, Jenson Button put his BAR-Honda on the poll. We also got to see something new for this season, Red at the top of the grid as Michael qualified his Ferrari second. Behind them were the two Renault, Fernando Alonso in third position and Giancarlo Fisichella right next to him. Juan Pablo Montoya out qualified his McLaren-Mercedes teammate Kimi Räikkönen to start fifth to Kimi's seventh. Takuma Sato slid the other BAR in between them. Starting from pit lane would be Rubens Barrichello in the other Ferrari due to his not even being able to run in qualifying. So, the stage is set for the start.

And what a start it was. As we've been seeing over the last two years, the Renault's blasted out of the gate with Giancarlo edging out Fernando to take the lead. Michael had a horrible start falling quickly back to sixth. The race went on for the first third of the race when all the fun started. First Narain Karthikeyan (the first F1 driver from India) had a suspension failure, caused by bouncing off of Champions Wall, quickly followed by Taku. But the next few laps saw race leaders fall bricks. Giancarlo loses Hydraulics handing P1 to Fernando. Six laps later it's Fernando's turn as he kisses the wall and cracks his rear suspension. Sometime around this point Taku rejoins the race some 15 or so laps down. The speculation was that he was just taking it as a test run. However, his race would end permanently on lap 40 when his brakes locked. Three laps later the Williams-BMW driven by Nick Heidfeld saw it's engine let go. There's been some real bad blood this season between Williams and BMW with each blaming the other for the poor performances this season. But back to the race. Just another three laps go by when Jenson meets Champions Wall himself. Was it just a mistake in his driving or did he have some help from the oil that was left from Nick's mishap? Who can say. All that mattered is that there was a new driver in P1. But JP didn't have a long stint either. He was Black Flagged on lap 52 for running a red light in the pit while the safety car was on the track. This propelled Kimi into the lead. So the progression went something like this:

Giancarlo -> Fernando -> Jenson -> JP -> Kimi

The interesting thing is that with all these lost leaders, Michael was able to take P2. Not to be outdone by his teammate, Rubens went all the way from dead last into P3. The Ferrari's were both on the podium for the first time this season.

With the Renault's taking no points this puts the championship races in a much more competitive situation. The drivers points look like this:

Pos   Driver             Nationality  Team            Points
    
1    Fernando Alonso      Spanish     Renault           59
2    Kimi Räikkönen       Finnish     McLaren-Mercedes  37
3    Jarno Trulli         Italian     Toyota            27
4    Nick Heidfeld        German      Williams-BMW      25
5    Michael Schumacher   German      Ferrari           24
6    Mark Webber          Australian  Williams-BMW      22
7    Rubens Barrichello   Brazilian   Ferrari           21
8    Ralf Schumacher      German      Toyota            20
9    Giancarlo Fisichella Italian     Renault           17
9=   David Coulthard      British     Red Bull Racing   17
11   Juan Pablo Montoya   Colombian   McLaren-Mercedes  16
12   Felipe Massa         Brazilian   Sauber-Petronas    7
13   Alexander Wurz       Austrian    McLaren-Mercedes   6
14   Jacques Villeneuve   Canadian    Sauber-Petronas    5
15   Pedro de la Rosa     Spanish     McLaren-Mercedes   4
15=  Christian Klien      Austrian    Red Bull Racing    4
17   Vitantonio Liuzzi    Italian     Red Bull Racing    1

And the Constructor's points are:

Pos Constructor      Points
   
1   Renault           76
2   McLaren-Mercedes  63
3   Williams-BMW      47
3=  Toyota            47
5   Ferrari           45
6   Red Bull Racing   22
7   Sauber-Petronas   12

Now it's off to Indianapolis for the US GP next Sunday.