Category: Rants

I spent the day looking at potential places to buy, and what I found was rather shocking. Ranging from “the low end” of around $340K to the upper end of the “high $400’s” I saw a huge swath of places that neither seem to be worth that much nor a good buy. Yet, looking at the housing market, it appears this is really the lower end of the good stuff. Yikes! How can anyone afford to buy stuff any more?

As if that wasn’t enough I decided to fire up Money 2003 and feed it 3 to 4 months of financial data (mine of course) to see if it could tell me what I can really buy with my cash. What did it tell me? That I’ll be out of cash by July and that I spend more per month than I bring in… oh, and that my target price for a new place should be no more than $165K. I think that this is all some big, sick joke on me somehow. Only time (and cash flow) will tell for sure.

It’s time for companies to fess up to shipping crud. I mean it. Why do I have to spend the better part of two days building a PC from scratch to play with some new software, only to have it crash after 30 mins? And the company responsible for this mess isn’t Microsoft, either. It’s Electronic Arts!

While I’m on the subject, what’s going on with those crazy people overseas? I think it may be time to just pack it all up and bring all of our citizens and troops home. Oh, and we should pull all our money back too. I wonder how the world would see the US once all of its fingers were out of the pie, as it were.

I’m convinced: we can’t all just get along. Some of us need our quiet time.

Had a close call with near product disaster at work today. Luckily everyone pulled through with nary a scratch. It makes me wonder what really is the meaning of life, and if there is intelligence in the universe.

I wonder this because there certainly isn’t any intelligence in upper management. Who knew?

I survived another round of public speaking today. Sure the crowd was small (10 or so folks) and reasonably friendly. Yes, I knew the subject matter (audio on the PC) well. Still, I can’t help but cringe when I know that my entire performance was video taped and will be critiqued by others… an myself. I can’t stand to listen to my own voice, much less see myself on camera. Imagine what watching a technical presentation on video will do to me. I think I’ll go blow some stuff up in Ghost Recon now.

Well, it looks like I spent the day bringing my two home systems back from the dead. The good news is I now have a working .Net server system, a domain, and a working client/game PC again. I also did a load of filing, bill paying, and a lot of laundry. I snuck in some BtVS and CYE as well 😉 (two of the most well written shows on TV these days, IMHO)

The bad news is I zipped right past doing the newsletter again. It will happen shortly. I just need to make time for it. Doh!

I’ve found the yuckiest thing in the whole world: cleaning the bathroom. I don’t know how anybody does this on a sustained basis. I mean, how and where does all the dirt, grime, and other stuff come from? If I smell one more bit of bleach I think I’ll hurl. Guess its time to look into some cleaning staff.

I’m beginning to wonder about all of this Tivo hacking stuff. Since I first got my new SAT-T60 I’ve been consumed with programming. This now happens so often that much of it gets deleted automatically before I can view it. So, I’ve decided to upgrade the unit. Or so I think.

There is no less than a dozen ways to do the upgrade but each come with their own unique peril. Add to that a co-worker who wants hacks put in for the satellite card (these are DirecTivo units) and the desire for web based programming and there is the makings of a hefty door stop in my future. I’ll spend some more time looking at this stuff today and then see if the leap makes sense.

Oh how I long for more than 30 hours or recording time.

Well, looks like I’m getting taken to the cleaners. I bought something on eBay that looked OK on the surface but now appears to be a big scam. Several other folks are telling me that they too have been snookered, so looks like its time for the police to step in.

Of course, my money is already sent and gone. Man, sometimes people really suck!

Another week is almost gone and I’ve got nothing to show for it. Well, I do have some wonderful bags under my eyes and my ears are ringing. If only the future was so bright as this!

I hope to put some more of the site back together this weekend. We’ll see if things get better.

As for tomorrow I’m off to visit the Northern Empire, so wish me luck.

I put a new blog script up but it doesn’t seem to be working quite right. Have to troubleshoot it some more when I have time this week.

Also, almost soloed at the flying field today. That means next time I go up I should be on my own, finally. Now I have no one to blame for accidents but me!