Risk Wars Invite: 2009

Risk Wars IV: Those Damn Dirty Apes

Astronaut Craig Markson crash lands on a distant planet ruled by apes who use a primitive race of humans for experimentation and sport. Soon Markson finds himself among the hunted, his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist. Escaping with little more than his clothes, he finds that he has landed on a planet where men are pre-lingual and uncivilized, while apes have learned speech and technology. Markson is captured again and taken to the city of the apes after damaging his throat so that he is silent and cannot communicate with the apes.

Beware the beast Markson, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death ---The Lost Scrolls of the Apes

You are invited to come enjoy some good food, drink and, most importantly, friends. If you stay long enough, you'll also get to play in some of the most spirited and blood-boiling games of Risk known to man and ape. There will be plenty of food and drinks, but you're welcome to bring anything you like. For those with little ones (and Craig), the pool will be open and we have plenty of swimmies and tubes.

Concerts I've Been To...

I have Nancy to thank for the loss of the last two hours of my life. After reading a post of hers the other day title "Music to My Ears", I've had this nagging feeling to find the old ticket stubs and compile a list of all the shows I've been to.

Believe it or not, I actually found my baggy of stubs and I'm only missing ones for the shows where the dates have a day of '00'. The only place where this isn't applicable is with the EPCOT shows, where I'm sure I have my room key/park ticket laying around somewhere.

An interesting fact is that I attended the vast majority of these shows with my buddy Ken, who carries on the tradition today in the San Francisco area.

I'll try and clean this up over the next couple of days, cleaning up the shows that are missing information...

The ? column has an F for festivals, H for headliners and O for opening acts.

DATE	?	BAND/OPENING ACT	THEATER
04/00/1987	H	Bon Jovi	Nassau Coliseum
08/16/1988	H	Aerosmith	Nassau Coliseum
08/16/1988	O	Guns & Roses	Nassau Coliseum
12/00/1991	H	Guns & Roses	Madison Square Garden
12/00/1991	O	Soundgarden	Madison Square Garden
08/09/1992	F	Lollapalooza	Jones Beach Theater
08/09/1992	H	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Jones Beach Theater
08/09/1992	H	Ministry	Jones Beach Theater
08/09/1992	H	Ice Cube	Jones Beach Theater
08/09/1992	H	Soundgarden	Jones Beach Theater
08/09/1992	H	The Jesus and Mary Chain	Jones Beach Theater
08/09/1992	H	Pearl Jam	Jones Beach Theater
08/09/1992	H	Lush	Jones Beach Theater
08/11/1992	H	U2	Giants Stadium
08/11/1992	O	Primus	Giants Stadium
04/24/1993	H	Phish	Cheel Arena, Clarkson U.
09/04/1993	H	Aerosmith	Jones Beach
09/04/1993	O	4 Non Blondes	Jones Beach
08/29/1994	H	Aerosmith	Jones Beach
08/29/1994	O	Collective Soul	Jones Beach
09/01/1994	F	H.O.R.D.E Tour	Jones Beach Theater
09/01/1994	H	Allman Brothers Band	Jones Beach Theater
09/01/1994	H	The Black Crowes	Jones Beach Theater
09/01/1994	S	Blues Traveler	Jones Beach Theater
09/01/1994	S	Dave Mathews Band	Jones Beach Theater
09/01/1994	H	Big Head Todd & The Monsters	Jones Beach Theater
08/09/1995	H	Allman Brothers Band	Jones Beach Theater
09/19/1995	H	Eric Clapton	Nassau Coliseum
09/19/1995	O	Clarence Gatemouth Brown	Nassau Coliseum
10/27/1995	H	Page & Plant	Madison Square Garden
10/27/1995	O	Tragically Hip	Madison Square Garden
11/15/1995	H	Jethro Tull	Beacon Theater
12/15/1995	H	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Nassau Coliseum
12/15/1995	O	Silverchair	Nassau Coliseum
07/21/1996	H	Allman Brothers Band	Jones Beach Theater
07/21/1996	O	God Street Wine	Jones Beach Theater
07/25/1996	H	KISS	Madison Square Garden
07/25/1996	O	D Generation	Madison Square Garden
08/30/1996	H	Jethro Tull	Jones Beach Theate
08/30/1996	O	Emerson, Lake & Palmer	Jones Beach Theate
12/29/1996	H	KISS	Nassau Coliseum
04/06/1997	F	Spring Blues Festival	Westbury Music Fair
04/06/1997	H	B.B. King	Westbury Music Fair
06/21/1997	H	Allman Brothers Band	Jones Beach Theater
06/21/1997	O	Ronnie Earl	Jones Beach Theater
10/16/1997	H	Rolling Stones	Giants Stadium
01/29/1998	H	Billy Joel	Nassau Coliseum
03/15/1998	H	Allman Brothers Band	Beacon Theater
03/16/1999	H	Allman Brothers Band	Beacon Theater
06/15/1999	H	Shania Twain	Madison Square Garden
06/16/1999	O	Leahy	Madison Square Garden
05/00/2000	H	The Byrds	EPCOT
05/00/2000	H	Gary Puckett	EPCOT
06/10/2000	H	KISS	Jones Beach
06/10/2000	O	Ted Nugent	Jones Beach
04/00/2006	H	The Marshall Tucker Band	EPCOT
03/00/2008	H	The Guess Who	EPCOT

The Right Immigration Policy...

I'm taking a course titled 'Public Policy and Labor Markets' for my masters, which I'll happily be done with in two weeks (the class and my masters!). There was an interesting set of readings this week, all dealing with immigration and whether or not our system needs reform. Reform from what you ask?

Well, it turns out that in the 1960s, we (JFK) "de-regulated" immigration because we didn't want to offend anyone but not allowing certain groups. In the process, the quality of immigrants quickly dropped and you get the situation we have today. Before you jump to conclusions, I'm not passing judgement on our most populous immigrants, Mexicans. I think that their labor fits into our economic system, particularly the service industry. Without them, the quality of life for the middle class of our country wouldn't be where it is today (Listen, I know that there are problems with the economy, but the only ones affecting me are high gas prices and maybe higher grocery prices. I'll get into this in another post, down the road though. I did offer up my quick fix here though). However, there exist certain issues that crop up, particulary their drain on our social welfare system, for which the illegals don't contribute a dime to. That is my problem. Period.

If Obama insists that we all have to contribute to our social collective, then I think immigrants, illegal or not, need to contribute as well. Of course, I also feel that we should all be contributing at the same rate, but I'm getting off topic. I'll leave you with one of the readings from this week.

The Right Immigration Policy by Steven Malanga
http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_immigration_policy.html

What do you think? Should we be selective regarding what type of immigrant we legally let in or should it be first come, first serve?

Lets Suspend Federal Income Taxes

Here's a thought... Instead of throwing money at these failing lenders (who all knew what they were doing was going to be disastrous one day), let's temporarily suspend federal income taxes for those making sub $200k. Whether these people use the money wisely or not, it will get pumped into the economy and, it won't be in the hands of failed lenders.

I have to go to bed right now, but I'll think this through a little more thorougly in the days ahead. This is the article from the Wall Street Journal that gave me the idea: http://tinyurl.com/43w5m3

One of the better Mac install screens...

Screen capture used without permission, but I'll include a link to their website: http://www.adiumx.com/

Emma Update...

Sorry about the cryptic Twitter/IM away message I left earlier today.  I haven't had a chance to update those I was in contact today, so I'll do it for everyone here.

Yes, we did spend almost three hours in the ER with Emma today.  She was partaking in her patented couch diving, where she takes all the pillows and cushions from the living room couch and then dives on to them.  Somehow this time, she missed the soft landing zones.

Emma landed square on her face.  Because we weren't in the living room to witness it, she came upstairs with a bloody nose and got the story second hand from her and Anna.  Emma didn't look too bad, but she was babbling incoherently and was holding both sides of her head.  With the chance of her having a broken nose or even a concussion, the emergency room was our only option.

When she relaized were we were, she was ready to go home and nothing was wrong with her.  Of course, this was the most crowded that we've seen St. Charles' emergency room.  So, after a few hours waiting, Emma was free of any marks, except for some scratches on the end of her nose.  The doctor said that it looks like she only got the cartilage at the end of her nose and that otherwise, she looked fine.  I think that he may have been more worried about the scratches on her arm from a spill yesterday.

So... we're back home and just finished a nice, late, sushi dinner, after a very filling Campus Heros lunch this afternoon.  All is well.

Sorry for the lack of updates...

It's been a busy month since I last posted and I just wanted to write something today. Here's an update of what I have been up to:

• The new machine really hauls and as I Twittered, I actually upgraded to Hardy Heron already and I haven't looked back. The sound still isn't 100% and I could never really get Wine to work properly, but I guess that's why I can either dual-boot it or bring up the XP partition in VMWare Server under Ubuntu. Overall, I'm realy impressed with the strides that Ubuntu has made.
• The Wii should be back today and I'm anxious to check out all the games that I borrowed from a friend. The girls have actually missed it and it's flashing blue light, next to the den television.
• Believe it or not, the outside cleanup is almost done and it 's not even May yet! Traditionally, we don't do it until the middle of May, but with the nice weather, I couldn't resist - particularly after being recharged after our trip to Florida over Easter break. Today I have a bunch of plantings to take care of in the yard and some trees to trim. After that, it's mulch time!

Well, that's about it for now. I'll write more later and expand on some of my updates above...

How I loaded up my new Gutsy Gibbon box...

For those of you that don't know, Gutsy Gibbon is the name for Ubuntu's latest, non-beta release of their distribution of Linux. The following is a work in progress and I will be modifying this post in the coming days...

Hardware...
I treated myself on this one. The only thing that I reused was the case from my old machine.

• Mobo: ASUS P5N-E
  
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz (Kentsfield)
• Cooling: Rosewill RCX-Z4
  
• Memory: 2 x 2GB DDR2 (PC2 6400)
  
• Video Card: EVGA GeForce 9600GT 512MB
• HDD: 2 x 320GB SATA2 (Mirrored by Mobo)
• Optical: LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner
• Power: Antec Neopower 550W
  
• Monitor: 2 x Acer 22"AL2215WBD Widescreen LCD with HDCP
• Input: Microsoft Wireless Ergonomic Natural Desktop 7000
  

OS and Software Configuration...

• Workstation Install of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, using most of HDD
• Install of Windows XP Professional to remainder of HDD
  
• VMware Server
• Google Firefox Extensions
• Running Your XP Partition Directly in Ubuntu Using VMware
• Automatically mounting SMB shares
• VMWare server using HD partitions
• Use your existing Windows Installation & Apps in Ubuntu
• VMware running native XP on SATA disk | part 2
• Change the GRUB Menu Timeout
• Firefox Tweak Guide
• Mounting SMB File Shares Using Cifs
• Mounting SMB Shares
• Installing LAMP Using TASKEL
• Network Printing from Windows XP
• Fix sound in VMware Server
• Installing MediaWiki via GUI and Synaptic
• Switching to Ubuntu from Windows
• Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000 Install
• VMware How To
• Schedule tasks using gnome-schedule
• Make your extensions work in Firefox Beta 3
• Image preview extension for Firefox
• Turn your PC into a DVD Ripping Monster

Lingering Problems...

• Sound management in Linux overall and within VMware
• /etc/X11/xorg.conf craps out every now and then, requiring me to restore a good copy
• Can't get a picture from my Microsoft Lifecan NX-6000 in Skype
  

Cisco? We don't need no stinkin' Cisco!

I came across this email today as I was transferring the last of some old PST files up to Gmail. I still get a kick out of this today and since I created the Franken-Network, I can vouch for it's authenticity. My only regret was not putting the Linksys routers up inside the 4006 chassis for the pictures...

From: Vincent Raicovi
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 11:22 AM
To: *Names Removed to Protect the Innocent*
Cc: *Names Removed to Protect the Innocent*
Subject: A tailor made Linksys commercial. Too bad Cisco will never let you see it!

How does *Name removed* route VLANs when their Cisco 4006 goes on the fritz?

Linksys routers, that’s how!

Yes, what you’re seeing is really true. I’m currently routing 3 VLANs (if I don’t get parts fast enough, I’ll be going to five!), using $50, Linksys routers! While trying to re-cable a rack late Friday night, my 4000 decided to go out on me. Upon learning that Cisco SmartNet had expired back in September, there was only one thing that I could do to get administrative staff up and running; rely on Linksys!

You’re looking at 2 Linksys BEFSR11’s and 1 Linksys Network Everywhere router,
doing the job of a $10,000+ router. Of course, they don’t handle fiber, but with a little creative wiring, everyone is happier and if I didn’t tell anyone, they wouldn’t even know!

No Need for Words - 20080302

Courtesy of My New Hotrod

Neil Patrick Harris: The Shoe Fairy!

Adam Curry Interview...

Here's a quick video of Adam Curry talking about society, civility and his role in each with PodShow...

No Need For Words - 20080214

Courtesy of AP

No Need For Words - 20080214

Courtesy of Daily News

No Need For Words - 20080209

Courtesy of Jonathan Ferrey / Getty Images

Great Moment between Eli & Peyton

Here's a clip from the locker room after the Giants won the Superbowl. I saw parts of this on SportsCenter last night, but it seems that SNY had better audio.

Anyone else heading in for the Ticker Tape? Let me know...

I'm a slacker...

I've been a real slacker lately when it comes to blogging/writing. With nearly a month and a half off between semesters, I completely went into lazy mode. Now, with week one of nine complete this semester, I'm going to force myself to be better, particularly after this semester is over March 30th.

Writing eases my mind, as I'm able to put into words everything that is normally bouncing around inside my head. It doesn't matter what I choose to write about, it just seems to work.

So, I'll be back soon enough. It's budget time at work and once the dust settles on that and the new semester, I'll get into a comfortable rhythm and start to write on a more regular schedule.

Until then, hang tight...

MacWorld 2008 Starts Today...

I'm excited to see what goodies Steve Jobs is going to unveil today. I'll be following the action from Engadget's Live Feed...

Join Me Goofing Off Online...

I added some links down on the right-hand column that will help you find me online at various gaming services. These are the only ones that I'm really using right now, but I'll update the list should I branch out.

I hope to catch you online!

Google Reader Update: January 2008

From your 59 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 10,620 items, starred 140 items, shared 187 items, and emailed 45 items.

Wow! In a month, I've gone crazy with Google Reader. Here are my numbers from exactly one month ago today:

From your 29 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 2,506 items, starred 23 items, shared 76 items, and emailed 20 items.

In thirty days, I've more than doubled my reading list and more than quadrupled the overall amount of articles that I'm reading. I've actually been pairing down the feed list over the past few days as well. I'm finding a lot of replication between sites, particularly tech sites and with my current batch of feeds, I'll sometimes come across the same article three or more times.