bytex64.net

Officially. I got home today to find that GAIM had crashed, and bitlbee was logged off. Not that odd, AIM from time to time just sucks balls, and I am using a beta version of GAIM. I restart things and try to reconnect, but it seems that AIM is having none of it. Any attempts to connect to the service stall and time out. "Hmm," I thought. Maybe AOL has finally caught on to the fact that my email hasn't been valid for several years, or maybe I'm in need of a password change. I go remedy this, and try to log on again. Success.

... For about five minutes. Then I get kicked off, followed by more of the above suckage. I've formulated two theories:

• at&t has attached an AIM-sniffing widget to my section of their network, and it borked hard, stuffing any AIM connections for a good period of time. Such a thing is within the realm of possibility.
• Aim has decided that sucking balls is not enough, and has advanced to biting, chewing, and gargling. You're breaking my balls, AOL, you're breaking my balls.

And while I am aware of the ingratefulness of complaining about a free service, especially one supported by ads that my client does not have, I'd like to think that they would keep up a certain lack of ball biting. No such luck.

Since I'm angry at the moment, I'd like to try and persuade the rest of you to switch to Jabber. It's something I think I've mentioned before, but I'm not sure I've ever provided any reasoning behind it. Here is why you should use Jabber:

• SSL Encryption - Unlike AIM, all communication with the server can be encrypted. This does still depend on your server being trustworthy, but it also means that malicious people on your network can't look at your AIM conversations. What? You didn't know that it was trivial to sniff AIM conversations? Allow me to introduce you to AIM Sniff.
• You don't have to leave behind your friends - Jabber supports "gateways". The server can connect to your AIM, Yahoo, and MSN accounts, and you can talk to your buddies on them through your jabber account. You don't even need a fancy multi-protocol client like GAIM. BUT: Not all servers can do this, either because AOL/Yahoo/MS has blocked them (as is the case with the jabber.org server), or the server doesn't support gatewaying (as is the case with Google Talk). Oh, right...
• Google Talk is Jabber - Right now, Google Talk has the ability to talk to any other jabber server. (This goes for the chat functionality in gmail as well) This means that if you have a gmail account, you're about fifteen seconds away from being able to talk to me on jabber. Furthermore, a recent press release has stated that AOL and Google plan on connecting their IM services. Nothing has resulted from this, yet, but I remain hopeful.

And quite possibly the most important reason:

• Jabber doesn't #*$(& block my account for hours without any @(*&!# reason. - The jabber.org server does go down occasionally, but I consider it an exception because it is the jabber server. Google had some problems at the beginning, but lately has been solid as a rock.

Of course, if you use Google Talk, there is still the possibility that Google will save all your conversations forever, which will then result in you living destitute and broken on the sidewalk after your ex-wife brings up that one conversation about you, the secretary, and 50 gallons of lime Jell-O in court and walks away with everything. You're not obligated to use them, though, there's a plethora of public jabber servers. Oh, that's one last point I forgot.

• Jabber is like email - There is no one "jabber server". Jabber works with a distributed network of servers running independently, just like email. In fact, a jabber address and an email address have the same format (this is especially apparent with Google Talk, where they are the same thing). Jabber's biggest strength is that there is no single point of failure, and no single entity that controls it. That cannot be said for any other IM network. After the bomb drops, the remaining cockroaches will be typing messages to each other on their Model M keyboards through jabber.

So if you feel like giving it a try, I can be found at both bytex64@jabber.org and bytex64@gmail.com. Hope to hear from you soon.

Dear Blue Man Group,

make my CPU teh phast so i can playz te far cry.

P.S. starforce is teh suck

OMG LOLZ,
bytex64

---

And intel gave us... Core.

Q: How do you remove a user from linux?
A: Get him a girlfriend.

--wiredclimber on digg

You know what? I actually kinda like this "Web 2.0" theme. It's got a simple, visually appealing style, and it's definetly a lot more lively than any other theme I've done, while remaining lightweight. Yep, I think this will be the default theme from now on.

Hahaha. Yeah, right.

I've come across (via my beloved AnimeSuki) a new anime series called REC (as in, Record). What do I like about it, you ask? Well, I'm honestly not quite sure. You see, it's a story about a guy, Matsumaru, who works in the advertising department of a snack company, and a girl, Aka, who wants to be a famous voice actress (and idolizes Audrey Hepburn). Fate, in the form of Aka's apartment burning down, bring them together, and how they're trying to make the best of it.

It's set in modern times, there's no large fighting robots, no magical girls, minimal ecchi, and no catgirls. Aka is 20, and Matsumaru is 26. By my normal metric, there's not much to like, but somehow I find it to be a cute, endearing story. I think that maybe, in contrast to my usual fare, I can relate to this one more on a personal level. One fun twist is that the episodes are all named after Audrey Hepburn movies, and the intro shows Aka dressed in famous Audrey Hepburn roles/pix/onda_aka.jpg
. It's pretty cute.

Lastly, I have discovered that there is only one reaction you can possibly have to shrimp flavored ramen. And that reaction is "BLEARGH!"

Alright, since nobody will actually read this on April 1st, let's eliminate the confusion. This is an April Fools Day post. That said...

• bytex64.net is now Web 2.0! We're all about Podcasts and AJAX! Look at those pastels!
• I've decided to replace my desktop machine with a Mac. Who need more than one mouse button, anyway? I'm secretly in love with shuffling windows and click-to-focus semantics!
• I'll be starting a new vodcast about programming graphical user interfaces!
• I've kicked my pocky habit!

Yeah, not a whole lot of interesting stuff. I already convinced Jen that KH2 was being recalled due to broken discs. Hook, line, and sinker. For those of you still in need of some fantastic bullshit, check out my review of Fruit-chan no Kojimbo I did a while ago.

Through experimentation with Democracy Player, I've learned about a little gem of a show called RocketBoom. It's a daily mini-news show that is anchored by an attractive blonde with a TI-99/4A (with the add-on voice synthesizer module), and discusses the odd and bizarre going around the web. It's a bit like an interesting and entertaining summary of digg, boingboing, and fark. Amanda Congdon is making me have serious doubts about my creepy obsession with sworn devotion to Morgan Webb. *sigh*.

James said that my story had a H2G2-esque feel to it, "except for the pretty girl thats been dead for 200 years and you can never talk to again. Thats completely fucking emo -- twice." Yes, that's right, kids, I'm boldly treading new paths in the genre of Emo Sci-Fi.

Jen was supposed to have written a detailed commentary about the story, but so far hasn't given me squat. Unfortunately, Kingdom Hearts 2 came out today, so I probably won't see or hear from her again until August.

Yes, I am working on VFS 4. I'm transferring footage right now. I've caught some sort of virus (biological) that has me feeling rather cruddy, but it is my top priority, right after eating, sleeping, basic hygiene, and Battlestar Galactica.

Me: It's a sad fact of arcade machines that you don't figure out they're broken until you've put your money in.
Erickson: That's why my harem slaves will all be well-trained in arcade machine maintenance and repair. If it's a choice between a gold bikini and a training course to fix my Crazy Taxi machine, she goes to the training

So lately my friends and I have been getting into Yahoo Games Literati a lot. Now, I'm sort of proud of the fact that I read a lot, and have a rather large vocabulary and a pretty good grasp of english grammar. But here's the thing:

I suck at scrabble.

Well, I used to, at least. With our frequent games I've been making good progress. You see, the thing is that Scrabble/Literati is not about words. It's about claiming space. It actually has a similar feel to Go in terms of protecting/attacking vital points (like those triple word scores). Once I started thinking about it like that, I started doing pretty well.

A few nights ago Erickson told me that he might be able to buy a Maserati something or other convertible for $2000. All he needed was to replace the radiator, which should be easy since it's a Chrysler drivetrain, he said. Immediately my crappy Chrysler senses started tingling. Let's see... Chrysler drivetrain from 1990. That has to be the LeBaron drivetrain. Broken radiator means that the car has probably overheated, and since those engines are cast iron block with aluminum heads, the head has probably warped as a result. I warned Erickson about this. Later, he wound up talking to a wrench who had looked at it, and indeed, that is exactly what happened. Sucks for Erickson, but I totally nailed that diagnosis.

I got up bright and early Sunday morning to go to Kankakee to see Dana and Patsy's new child's baptism. Her name is Madison, and she's their second child. It was good to see them again, even if I did screw up my sleep schedule to do it. And by screw up, I mean I slept four hours in the afternoon once I got home. I feel like ick.

I forgot to mention this little tidbit of conversation in the car last night, only slightly embellished:

Yan: ...and the tears would turn into a crystal...
Me: Dude, you're thinking of Sailor Moon.
Yan: Oh, right. The SILVER IMPERIUM CRYSTAL!
Jen: I thought the Silver Imperium Crystal was made from the seven rainbow crystals.
Me: Well, it depends on whether you're talking about the manga or the anime. The rainbow crystal saga wasn't in the manga, it was created for the anime in order to stall for time and I have just made a complete dork out of myself with my intimate knowledge of Sailor Moon trivia.
Kan: It's alright, we already knew you were a dork.
Me: *cries softly*

We went to see The Hills Have Eyes last night. I'll tell you that I was optimistic, since it was a remake of a Wes Craven classic. It's been a while since I've seen a movie in a theater, and a horror film might be a nice change of pace. The verdict?

I probably would have liked Ultraviolet more.

The movie was laughably bad. I'm not a fan of horror to begin with, because either the movie is good and freaks me out, or it's bad, and I can objectively sit and laugh at it. There's a scene in The Hills Have Eyes where this deformed man in a wheelchair laughs and says, "It's breakfast time!" shortly before a large, scary freak busts in through the door and chases the hero down. I missed half this scene because I was busting my gut laughing. Later in the same scene, the hero tries to block the door with a bathtub, only to have the monstrosity he's running from bust through the wall. I mean, seriously, that's Looney Tunes humor right there. We more or less concluded that due to our exposure to either video games, MCB anatomy classes, or Takashi Miike movies, the movie was pretty tame, despite being full of people getting fingers, limbs, heads, etc. chopped, slashed, impaled, shot, etc. I think Jen summed up it's nauseating non-effectiveness when, after watching the movie and discussing its gore, she said, "I'm hungry!"

So afterwards, we went to LaBamba's, where the burrito as big as your head has apparently achieved urban legend status. The story goes that you walk up to the counter and challenge the cook to make a burrito as big as your head, and if he can't... well, the story got fuzzy at that point. Kan asked about it, and confirmed what I already knew: the burrito as big as your head is, in fact, the super burrito.

Should have seen V for Vendetta...