2004 November

My Family Wants Me Dead

I’ve come to realize that many times someone in my family has nearly killed me. I’ve had numerous brushes with Death. The Grim Reaper and I are on a first-name basis. Here are the list of things that nearly killed me in chronological order:

• <5 years old - Mom sets me down next to the stove to get something out of the pantry, and I put my hands on the one burner that was on high.
• <5 years old - Uncle swings me around, loses his grip, and my head goes through the wall.
• <5 years old - Dad’s friend tosses me into a pool thinking I can swim. Dad and said friend had to dive in to keep me from drowning.
• <5 years old - Trying to jump on my dad’s waterbed makes me lose my balance and land on the wooden edge, cracking my skull in half. Took numerous stitches to keep my brain from spilling out.
• 12 years old - Drunk stepfather dangles me over the balcony of the 2nd story apartments, holding me with one hand on my ankle, as a joke.
• 17 years old - Dad gets drunk and passes out. All 4 burners on the stove were on high which sets the kitchen on fire, and the smoke detector doesn’t work. Setting my alarm to go off at 4 in the morning to play Quake 1 on the computer saved us.

Designtopia To Be Killed

It was more a “put your toe in the water” kind of thing for me with Designtopia.net. Designtopia was supposed to be an easy way for me to freelance my web design skills to anyone that needed my services, but it turned out to be more of a headache than a financial relief.

Trying to design websites for people is like pulling teeth, it makes you stupid after a while. One guy wanted blinking letters that scroll from right to the left of the browser, another wanted a bunch of Under Construction graphics ala 1994 on pages he wanted me to put up, but not have any information on. Another one wanted to use specific colors that looked so horrible, it gave me an eyesore just looking at it.

A lot of these people didn’t want my advice, my expertise, my skills, they wanted to control me like a puppet and treat me like I’m merely an extension of their superior web design skills that doesn’t exist. They didn’t care about accessibility, usability guidelines, or proper semantics. One guy even wanted me to spam his website to millions of emails from an email list that he purchased for “an amazingly low price of $500.” The vast majority won’t communicate with you, and don’t even have enough content to fill a website with useful information. For every serious client that had a plan, asked for my advice, and let me do what I do best, there were 20 more that wasted your time.

Live and learn, as they say.

Halo 2?

I have only one thing to say about Halo 2 and playing a FPS on a console. Yay for aggressive auto-aim!

November 16th is officially dubbed “Feel Sorry For Console Gamers Playing A FPS Day.”

Firefox 1.0 Launch Day

I made a post over at 3DGPU.com � Firefox 1.0 Launch Day with details about the public final release of Firefox 1.0. The post includes resources you may find useful, tips and tricks, and local download mirrors in case the official site is swamped. Firefox is the browser to use if you want a great experience browsing the internet.

I Dream Of Tangerines

Ambient Nights is a collection of ambient mixes that are not only superb, but refreshing. If you ever wanted to relax, to be taken on a journey, to reflect, to be uplifted, Ambient Nights is the ticket. To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the project, a new mix has been released, called My Dreams of Tangerines. It is so good, I’m at a lost for words to describe the experience.

Instead I’ll let you read Jeronimo’s blog where he talks about the new mix and alarm clocks. And Baba’s blog. My site, and these two blogs were mentioned and honored with this terrific mix. I’m still trying to regain my bearings after listening to this wonderful mix.

Am I happy? Absolutely. Christmas came a month early.

Burned English Muffins

I was woken up by the dog this Sunday morning, early by my definitions. She nudged me awake with her nose. Immediately I smelled something burning.

My roommate burned an english muffin. How can you burn an english muffin? I hate the smell of burnt food. It should be against the law to burn food.

Sony Really Does Suck

If you haven’t yet, read about my Sony (mis)adventures with their so-called customer support when my 27″ Sony WEGA TV decides to hardly work for me. Sony finally got me a new TV to replace the old flaky one, which died again 3 days ago, and wouldn’t turn back on. It took them months to finally send me a replacement.

Two guys delivered the TV in an uncovered truck, and when I was signing the papers, I asked them what took them so long to get the TV to me, because they called me last Wednesday and told me that I’d have it by Friday, and a whole week later, on a Saturday, they deliver it to me.

They said that one of them had to go to South Florida to make a delivery, and another said his truck was broken down and he had no way of getting it to me. This is the uncovered truck, mind you. How do you have a delivery/repair business if you use an uncovered pickup truck is beyond me. Further proof that I live in Redneckville.

Suffice to say, I don’t intend on ever buying a Sony product. Not with this kind of “support”. I use that term in the most loose term.