the weBLog
Friday, October 17, 2003
Work
7:30 (I was late) - 3:00, 5:00-10:45 (I took over someone's shift and stayed late). I didn't get any movies this time, maybe I'll pick some up tomorrow for ripping.
7:30 (I was late) - 3:00, 5:00-10:45 (I took over someone's shift and stayed late). I didn't get any movies this time, maybe I'll pick some up tomorrow for ripping.
Update
Internet connectivity is not perfect (probally still need to tweak positionsing somewhat, and the cardboard/mounting tape setup I have right now could be made more permanent and stable), but it is so much better than dial up. Very low packet loss (2% over long term pinging), I think I can bring that down to zero if I just get all the orientation right.
Internet connectivity is not perfect (probally still need to tweak positionsing somewhat, and the cardboard/mounting tape setup I have right now could be made more permanent and stable), but it is so much better than dial up. Very low packet loss (2% over long term pinging), I think I can bring that down to zero if I just get all the orientation right.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Antennas arrived! check out the difference!
Pinging google.com - 0% packet loss!
Ping statistics for 216.239.53.99:
Packets: Sent = 116, Received = 116, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 40ms, Maximum = 68ms, Average = 44ms
I upgraded my wet-11's firmware -
Firmware Version:
1.5.4
And what is this? The wet-11 now sees three networks! Where did bananamango come from?
Wireless Site Survey: SSID MAC address Channel Signal Strength(%) Mode
McEWireless 00:06:25:FA:FE:00 1 54 Infra
default 00:80:C8:1C:25:C5 6 54 Infra
bananamango 00:06:25:75:93:FF 11 44 Infra
Pinging google.com - 0% packet loss!
Ping statistics for 216.239.53.99:
Packets: Sent = 116, Received = 116, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 40ms, Maximum = 68ms, Average = 44ms
I upgraded my wet-11's firmware -
Firmware Version:
1.5.4
And what is this? The wet-11 now sees three networks! Where did bananamango come from?
Wireless Site Survey: SSID MAC address Channel Signal Strength(%) Mode
McEWireless 00:06:25:FA:FE:00 1 54 Infra
default 00:80:C8:1C:25:C5 6 54 Infra
bananamango 00:06:25:75:93:FF 11 44 Infra
Blockbuster as it should be
Today at Blockbuster I sat around a lot; this is more how I imagined the job when I applied. Today's rentals were Charlie's Angels: Full Throtle (comes out in a week) and the Hulk (comes out in two weeks).
Antennas!
Should be arriving later today (the 16th)! Of course, I'm currently associated and getting very low packet loss. But these better antennas with permanent mounting should be significantly better than my current setup.
Today at Blockbuster I sat around a lot; this is more how I imagined the job when I applied. Today's rentals were Charlie's Angels: Full Throtle (comes out in a week) and the Hulk (comes out in two weeks).
Antennas!
Should be arriving later today (the 16th)! Of course, I'm currently associated and getting very low packet loss. But these better antennas with permanent mounting should be significantly better than my current setup.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Work
Slow breakfast, busy lunch, submitted an application and resume to the IT department for transfer!
Seattle Wireless
Went with Dan to the Seattle Wireless meeting at the Drinkmore Cafe. Talked to Rob Fickenger. He's nice to newbies, articulate, and seems to be reasonably passionate without fanatacism about community wireless networks.
Fry's Electronics, again
Ended the day at Fry's with Dan. I bought Rob's new book, "Wireless Hacks." I'll try to get it signed next week; it looks like it has a lot of good information in it. I also bought Silverchair's "Best of Volume One" - loving it so far. LAstly, picked up 4 replacement min maglight bulbs.
Slow breakfast, busy lunch, submitted an application and resume to the IT department for transfer!
Seattle Wireless
Went with Dan to the Seattle Wireless meeting at the Drinkmore Cafe. Talked to Rob Fickenger. He's nice to newbies, articulate, and seems to be reasonably passionate without fanatacism about community wireless networks.
Fry's Electronics, again
Ended the day at Fry's with Dan. I bought Rob's new book, "Wireless Hacks." I'll try to get it signed next week; it looks like it has a lot of good information in it. I also bought Silverchair's "Best of Volume One" - loving it so far. LAstly, picked up 4 replacement min maglight bulbs.
My geekcode
GS/E/CS d- s+: a-- C++ UL++++>UB++++/UL++>+++ P+ L+ !E--- W++ N+ !o K? w+ O- M@/+>++ V- PS+++(--) PE++ Y+ PGP>++ t+@ 5? X- R tv- b+(++)>+++ DI+ D++ G e>++++++ h!@>h+ r !y+(?)(-)
If you're willing to spend the time to decipher it, you'll probally learn something new about me
GS/E/CS d- s+: a-- C++ UL++++>UB++++/UL++>+++ P+ L+ !E--- W++ N+ !o K? w+ O- M@/+>++ V- PS+++(--) PE++ Y+ PGP>++ t+@ 5? X- R tv- b+(++)>+++ DI+ D++ G e>++++++ h!@>h+ r !y+(?)(-)
If you're willing to spend the time to decipher it, you'll probally learn something new about me
Monday, October 13, 2003
Monday
After about two hours of sleep, failing ot wake to 30 minutes of alarm, the maternal unit roused me. I managed to make it into work by 7:22, so that will round down to 7:15, due to the new 7-minute roudning rule. Not so bad for me this time, but seconds later and I would have been bumped to 7:30. It was about the most average day I've ever had at the resturant; everything went smoothly.
After work, I helped the same maternal unit with some spreadsheets, then I came home and crashed for about 4 hours. Next was dinner, a bit of family home evening, and working on this snazy new layout for the weBLog. I still have some things I want to fix, but I think it looks pretty good.
My calves are incredibly sore from Sunday's 15 minutes of stairs. I should do things like that more often.
Wireless is still fun
According to UPS, my new wireless antenae should arrive here on the 16th, which means I won't have the things for Tuesday's Seattle Wireless meeting. I think I'll go anyway, if Dan's going this week.
Right now, I'm on my laptop Mobius connected wirelessly to my desktop oasis which is sharing a dial-up connection. I'm not using WEP, so anyone who might be driving by can leech my 26.4 kpbs connetion. Pretty exciting!
After about two hours of sleep, failing ot wake to 30 minutes of alarm, the maternal unit roused me. I managed to make it into work by 7:22, so that will round down to 7:15, due to the new 7-minute roudning rule. Not so bad for me this time, but seconds later and I would have been bumped to 7:30. It was about the most average day I've ever had at the resturant; everything went smoothly.
After work, I helped the same maternal unit with some spreadsheets, then I came home and crashed for about 4 hours. Next was dinner, a bit of family home evening, and working on this snazy new layout for the weBLog. I still have some things I want to fix, but I think it looks pretty good.
My calves are incredibly sore from Sunday's 15 minutes of stairs. I should do things like that more often.
Wireless is still fun
According to UPS, my new wireless antenae should arrive here on the 16th, which means I won't have the things for Tuesday's Seattle Wireless meeting. I think I'll go anyway, if Dan's going this week.
Right now, I'm on my laptop Mobius connected wirelessly to my desktop oasis which is sharing a dial-up connection. I'm not using WEP, so anyone who might be driving by can leech my 26.4 kpbs connetion. Pretty exciting!
Blockbuster alright
Blockbuster wasn't so bad today. Its still nothing special, but if more days are like today, it'll be alright. Thanks to my mom for the last-minute dinner, it was excellent. Seahawks won, thats good. Kasas City had a remarkable come-from-behind victory over Greenbay. I watched that after I got out of bed at 1:00. I have five movies to return, a resume to redo, four hours of sleep to get. I've just put a lot of the best downloaded music I have onto my iPod (before, I had only music that I had ripped from cds myself - mostly my own). I'm very much enjoying the new mix of music. I can't wait for something like the iTunes music store for the PC - and how about a place where I can get any song ever released for a buck? Sounds reasonable to me. Maybe companies will make less on new stuff, but their sales on old stuff will skyrocket. Record companies are all idiots.
Dj ColdCutKiller
Dj ColdCutKiller, aka Dan and personal friend of mine has posted some of his mixes on his website, hosted on slverfir.net. Check them out, I like them!
Blockbuster wasn't so bad today. Its still nothing special, but if more days are like today, it'll be alright. Thanks to my mom for the last-minute dinner, it was excellent. Seahawks won, thats good. Kasas City had a remarkable come-from-behind victory over Greenbay. I watched that after I got out of bed at 1:00. I have five movies to return, a resume to redo, four hours of sleep to get. I've just put a lot of the best downloaded music I have onto my iPod (before, I had only music that I had ripped from cds myself - mostly my own). I'm very much enjoying the new mix of music. I can't wait for something like the iTunes music store for the PC - and how about a place where I can get any song ever released for a buck? Sounds reasonable to me. Maybe companies will make less on new stuff, but their sales on old stuff will skyrocket. Record companies are all idiots.
Dj ColdCutKiller
Dj ColdCutKiller, aka Dan and personal friend of mine has posted some of his mixes on his website, hosted on slverfir.net. Check them out, I like them!
Sunday, October 12, 2003
So much for going to sleep early
Well, Blockbuster sucked more than I had hoped. I arrived just before 4 and there was a line half way across the store, so I jumped behind a register immediately, and didn't get clocked in until 5:20. After that, I wanted to try out being the active seller - the person out on the floor who tells everyone about the promotions the store has going on, and helps people find things, and so on. I thought it would be a good thing to try to work on my selling skills. I helped a lot of people out and talked to a lot of people about the three main promotions we have going on. I checked with the cashiers afterwards though, and not many of the promotions were sold. Well, since they are only good deals in certain circumstances, I guess that just means most of the people coming through the store are intelligent. But I digress.
What I didn't like about the whole experience is that Jason, manager on duty tonight, keeps pulling me aside telling me how I'm not supposed to tell the customers things they actually want to know. I am not, for example, to tell them about the guaranteed in stock or its free deal, as it is considered improper by the company. And I'm not supposed to tell them when a promotion ends, since that lowers sales. And I'm supposed to try to sell the finding nemo promotion to everyone, not just people that look remotely interested.
Call me old fashioned, but I'm not willing to sell products I don't believe in just to make a buck. When I talk about the movie freedom pass, I actually tell them how it can benefit them - and I'm honest about when it won't help them. The same goes for the Finding Nemo promotion. I tell them the good parts, and if they ask, the other parts as well.
The point of this whole rant is, I don't really like working at blockbuster. Checking people out and the free movies are fine, but the bureaucratic crap is too much for me, and I'm not sure I'm willing to miss too many more ultimate games for a few free movies. My lifestyle is also going down the tubes. I've had more fast food since I started at blockbuster than I had in the previous six months. I've gotten less exercise, less sleep, and done fewer worthwhile activities. So I've come up with a plan.
If I still feel the same after Sunday, I'm going to talk to Michele, the store manager, about how I made a bad choice in applying for the job. I'll offer to stick around for two weeks, so I don't screw her over while she finds someone to replace me. I'll even offer to stay on as an on-call CSR if I can maintain my employee benefits. But I don't think I can handle too much more of this.
Kill Bill, Volume One
Occasionally, more in the past than now, I would imagine in my mind a small puncture in my skin spurting blood out, but the pressure being so high that the hole is ripped ever larger and more copious amounts of blood emerge, eventually drowning everyone in the room with me. Apparently Quentin whatever-his-name-is has similar fantasies. Kill Bill is the most ridiculously gratuitous (in every way) violent film I've ever had the (perverted, inky dark) pleasure of seeing. People get sliced and spurt blood for minutes at a time, hundred are slaughtered by the sword, and heads, limbs, legs, and other appendages go flying regularly. Apart from that, the cinematograohy was just interesting enough, the plot twisted just enough, and the tongue in cheek just strong enough to prevent revulsion. Definitely an experience, but not a repeater for me.
Phenomenon
To restore my faith in movies after Kill Bill, I decided to watch Phenonenom. It was quite good, I enjoyed it despite the headache from lack of sleep that started and is now getting worse. I should probably sleep more. But I enjoy my computer too much I guess. Meh.
Well, Blockbuster sucked more than I had hoped. I arrived just before 4 and there was a line half way across the store, so I jumped behind a register immediately, and didn't get clocked in until 5:20. After that, I wanted to try out being the active seller - the person out on the floor who tells everyone about the promotions the store has going on, and helps people find things, and so on. I thought it would be a good thing to try to work on my selling skills. I helped a lot of people out and talked to a lot of people about the three main promotions we have going on. I checked with the cashiers afterwards though, and not many of the promotions were sold. Well, since they are only good deals in certain circumstances, I guess that just means most of the people coming through the store are intelligent. But I digress.
What I didn't like about the whole experience is that Jason, manager on duty tonight, keeps pulling me aside telling me how I'm not supposed to tell the customers things they actually want to know. I am not, for example, to tell them about the guaranteed in stock or its free deal, as it is considered improper by the company. And I'm not supposed to tell them when a promotion ends, since that lowers sales. And I'm supposed to try to sell the finding nemo promotion to everyone, not just people that look remotely interested.
Call me old fashioned, but I'm not willing to sell products I don't believe in just to make a buck. When I talk about the movie freedom pass, I actually tell them how it can benefit them - and I'm honest about when it won't help them. The same goes for the Finding Nemo promotion. I tell them the good parts, and if they ask, the other parts as well.
The point of this whole rant is, I don't really like working at blockbuster. Checking people out and the free movies are fine, but the bureaucratic crap is too much for me, and I'm not sure I'm willing to miss too many more ultimate games for a few free movies. My lifestyle is also going down the tubes. I've had more fast food since I started at blockbuster than I had in the previous six months. I've gotten less exercise, less sleep, and done fewer worthwhile activities. So I've come up with a plan.
If I still feel the same after Sunday, I'm going to talk to Michele, the store manager, about how I made a bad choice in applying for the job. I'll offer to stick around for two weeks, so I don't screw her over while she finds someone to replace me. I'll even offer to stay on as an on-call CSR if I can maintain my employee benefits. But I don't think I can handle too much more of this.
Kill Bill, Volume One
Occasionally, more in the past than now, I would imagine in my mind a small puncture in my skin spurting blood out, but the pressure being so high that the hole is ripped ever larger and more copious amounts of blood emerge, eventually drowning everyone in the room with me. Apparently Quentin whatever-his-name-is has similar fantasies. Kill Bill is the most ridiculously gratuitous (in every way) violent film I've ever had the (perverted, inky dark) pleasure of seeing. People get sliced and spurt blood for minutes at a time, hundred are slaughtered by the sword, and heads, limbs, legs, and other appendages go flying regularly. Apart from that, the cinematograohy was just interesting enough, the plot twisted just enough, and the tongue in cheek just strong enough to prevent revulsion. Definitely an experience, but not a repeater for me.
Phenomenon
To restore my faith in movies after Kill Bill, I decided to watch Phenonenom. It was quite good, I enjoyed it despite the headache from lack of sleep that started and is now getting worse. I should probably sleep more. But I enjoy my computer too much I guess. Meh.
