BrokenMonitor.NET

Peace Be To Google

Yes, that’s right. While it was a little harder to find than I had thought (and ‘my’ version uses Sally), here it is. Thanks to MudCat for this old school rhyme:

Miss Lucy had a tugboat.
The tugboat had a bell.
Miss Lucy went to heaven.
The tugboat went to

Hello operator.
Give me number nine.
If you disconnect me
I’ll kick you in the

Behind the refrigerator
There was a little glass.
Miss Lucy sat upon it.
It cut her in the

Ask me no more questions.
I’ll tell you no more lies.
The boys are in the bathroom
Zipping up their

Flies are in the country.
Bees are in the air.
Miss Lucy in the meadow
In just her underwear.

Life

Just a post to let all 1.73212 people that read this know: Yes, I’m still alive. Okay, now back to “How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?”

NIN: The Slip

Halo 27.

Free.

Get it. NOW.

Public Service Announcement

What’s better than running one virtual machine instance of Exchange 2007 SP1? Running two, of course!! What’s better than running having 6 HP Blade servers running VMware ESX? Having 8, of course! What’s better than working somewhere that sends you to training? Working somewhere that sends you to 3 training sessions in 2 months totaling over 9 days of new material, of course!! As it is noted on Gfuss.NET: If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Also noted on Gfuss.NET: Give me some money to pay off my student loans!!

GTAIV

Midnight of April 28th cannot come fast enough. I’ve got my pre-order in for the Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition.

The Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition will be presented in a customized Grand Theft Auto metal safety deposit box. The box will contain:
# Grand Theft Auto IV with special packaging
# The Grand Theft Auto IV Art Book, featuring never-before-seen production artwork from Grand Theft Auto IV
# Selected soundtrack CD from Grand Theft Auto IV, featuring new material from top artists, only available on this release
# An exclusive Rockstar keychain for the safety deposit box keys
# Completing the collection is a limited edition Rockstar duffel bag

Don’t ask me why I need all that crap, it’s the typical “OOH! SHINY!” American mentality…

It’s the same reason I’ll be getting the Metal Gear Solid 4 Limited Edition…

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 in collectible metal box

* 2 Making of Documentaries of MGS4 game - interview with Kojima
* 4 chapters of the graphic novel
* Metal Gear Import Soundtrack CD

Anyway, back to GTAIV; this may be the game that forces me to take a week or to away from World of Warcraft.

That sounds pretty pathetic when it’s typed out…

ticket number 4002112332

Alas, that is the ticket number for the repair of my new Samsung SyncMaster 2243BWX. What? Yes, yes. I know I was all proud of not having a single dead pixel. But then I saw them. Two stuck red pixels!! A simple pixel massage and….one was gone!! Another massage….and….nothing. How about the really cools tools like JScreenFix. Nothing. One pixel that will not change from red. Ah-ha!! Have no fear, this is why I made sure I purchased a LCD with a 36 month warranty. Now my only fear is that they will say, “Blah, blah….ISO standard states we are allowed to have X number of bad pixels…blah, blah.” Yes, that’s correct. Out of more than 59,000 pixels on my LCD, they are legally allowed to say having so many dead pixels is acceptable. That’s like saying my car is allowed to have a couple of non-working parts, but I can’t get it fixed until 5 parts stop working at the same time. At any rate, if they decided my repair was not warranted, I pay $55. Should I have to pay anything? I wouldn’t think so, but if that’s what it takes, then so be it. This brings up another good point. Buy your LCD at a local store. If something is wrong (e.g. dead pixel, stuck pixel) drive it back for a replacement. You may not get a better deal, but you’ll have less hassle trying to get another replacement.

1680×1050 = Huge-a-mungous-mammoth-gargantuan-ishly big

Alas, I have somewhat entered into the new digital age. I’m not much of a geek and don’t ‘need’ that latest and the greatest. As such I still have a keyboard from 1999, a mouse from a similar era albeit optical and a computer I built about 4 years ago (AMD Athlon XP 1500 - 1.25Gb Ram - Video card (I’d tell you what model it was, but remember, I’m not a geek and have no idea w/o checking Device Manager). So, since everyone so readily disposes of nice 17″ CRTs I have an abundant supply of 17″ CRTs. Why? Well, they display video for my computer so I can see what is going on. Have I wanted an LCD? You bet. I never got around to saving the money (or wanting to give it out). I’m an avid fan of paying things off (school, ccard, installment loans, etc.) rather than dropping a couple hundred for an LCD monitor that does the same as its CRT counterpart.

Alas, between my birthday and doing some work for the in-laws, I went into negotiation with Tiger Direct. Do they allow you to negotiate? No. But it sounded cool. Needless to say, since I finally decided to do it, I didn’t hold back. I’m now typing using my 1999 keyboard and looking at my Samsun SyncMaster 2243BWX 22″ wide screen LCD running at 1680×1050. What does that mean? Well, for starters, it is kind of making me sick. I cannot explain how ridiculously huge this thing is. I’d take a photo with my Canon Elph SD1K, but that would be uber-geek. I’ll just mention it has touch buttons (you know, like there really isn’t a button there, it just senses your finger. Talk to Steve Jobs if you don’t understand. He thinks ‘touchy’ buttons are wicked cool), integrated 2 port USB hub, 90 degree rotation with automatic screen adjust and something about 8000:1 contrast. If I was a geek, I’d understand why I would want 8000:1. I just assumed a bigger number would be more beneficial. That’s also why I like the 3 year warranty. 3 > 1.

This brings me to another topic. Why am I not interested in gadgets, gizmos and other ‘techie’ things? Ah-ha! But, I am! I’m just not interested in spending the money on them. My 2Gb iPod nano….thanks 5/3rd for the free nano. My Canon Elph SD 1000…..thanks over-time pay check. And so the pattern continues.

What will I buy next? Well, this 1999 keyboard has seen its better days along with something that is really gross and sticky that won’t come out from b/w the keys. I’ll bet the cause of the ‘accident’ was due to any one if my 4 children…..oh crap….I just bought a big LCD screen. We had better have a family discussion about the new addition to our house-hold.

And for all you geeks out there: “No dead pixels! W00t! W00t!”

NIN: Ghosts I-IV

Trent Reznor has released a new album, with the first 9 tracks of the 36 available as a free download. You can grab it here.

The full album is also available in a variety of formats from MP3 to FLAC, for $5; for $10 (plus shipping) you can get the CDs, plus immediate access to a direct download version.

Wordpress 2.3.3, flickr and Pownce… Oh my!

Messing with stuff on my hecatomb.net site… Finally signed up for a flickr account, and tied it to ShoZu, a Windows Mobile app that allows you to quickly upload photos / videos to sites like flickr, YouTube, etc. from my HTC 6800.

Looking at creating a Pownce account too, if I knew anyone else that would actually use it… *hint**hint*

Better Than Flowers

What’s better for your spouse than some flowers? Well, a Canon PowerShot SD1000, of course!! I know, I know. I have some previous posts where I discuss why digital cameras are not as good as analog ones (mostly for the sake of taking meaningless pictures). But, the other day my spouse said, “It would be nice to be able to take pictures of our children and have them printed so we wouldn’t have to pay to go to the studio and have them taken.” Since it involved saving money, I’m in. Now we can take really high quality pictures at ridiculously high resolutions and print them off. I think she was jealous of my brother’s spouse as well. They are always taking photos and videos and sharing them with friends and family. In our case, we used to take photos and let the undeveloped film sit around for a while and then send it away for 3 days to get developed (or lost in one case….thanks Wal-Mart/Fuji). Even after we received the pictures, we never distributed them in a timely fashion if at all.

On a different topic, it’s good to see that Hecatomb is not eating enough food and staying up really late to do work for ‘the man.’ I realize I said I would post my menu from the entire day, but that is really boring info and I don’t get on here enough to do so. But here’s yesterday’s for what it is worth:

• Yoplait Yogurt (light…)
• Orange
• Left over sub sandwich (you know, those really long ones you buy at your local deli)
• Spaghetti
• Garlic bread
• BlueBunny Strawberry Cheescake frozen yogurt (not ice-cream!!)
• Lot’s of black tea (Earl Grey, English Breakfast and a couple Irish Breakfast’s)

As you can see, I’m not so much counting calories as I am trying to change my diet. More good, less junk. Despite the fact that I’m eating well, it is not really that enjoyable. I used to have ‘toaster pastries’ for breakfast and now I have fruit and yogurt? No wonder it is not enjoyable. Mmmmmm!! That fresh orange sure goes swell with this black, bitter coffee!! Hot Dog!! Sign me up!!

Today’s Weight: 215 Lbs.