Every so often I check in to see how The West Memphis Three are coming along. Inevitably, I?m disappointed with my discoveries.
Some may recall who these three poor boys, now men, are from the HBO specials ?Paradise Lost? & ?Paradise Lost II?, the 2002 album release of ?Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three? (featuring the beloved Hank III among many others), an unwavering amount of support from the members of Metallica, Clive Barker, Trey Parker and Peter Straub, to name a few.
If you are unaware of this injustice filled nightmare, I will not inform you here, as it is just too much information to run down. However, if you?re interested in the story, please take a look at the numerous documentaries, websites and books devoted to the discovery of truth.
It?s an American Tragedy of stellar proportions and it makes no sense why these three are still sitting in jail cells?waiting.
Yeah, that?s right?I?ve become a part of the next generation of paying a buck for a song. Why? There is really only one reason?I?m lazy. If you?ve ever participated in the acquisition of music online, it?s a rough process; even more so these days given the influx of viruses running rampant on file sharing communities. You never know if you?re getting a quality file, so paying .99 cents for ease of use and guaranteed quality is definitely worth it to me.
When online file sharing became popular, my position was quite mixed about the legality and morality of such a process. Metallica came out strong against file sharing and considering I have quite the respect for my childhood heroes, I understood, if not adopted, the same frame of mind. That didn?t last long. The more I thought about how many times I had to purchase the same album time and again, the more I was less inclined to agree with them.
I bought ?Master of Puppets? the day it came out in 1986. I was 13, had very little pocket money and played that tape until the print wore off. I still have the tape, but it?s in a sad, sad state. (I kept it for old time?s sake, not for practical use). When CDs flooded the market, I bought the CD. I?m currently on my second set of Metallica CDs and fuck, I?m sick of paying for the same damn songs over and over!
So far, the purchasing mixture goes like so:
Stevie Wonder to Korn
Peoples & Yarbrough to Social Distortion
Earth, Wind & Fire to Megadeth
The Beach Boys to TLC
Etta James to Screaming Trees
Mudhoney to Norah Jones
Whoosh!
There goes my hard earned IT dollars.
Everyone either does or should have a relaxation regime to glue together the shreds of sanity every 24 hours to make it to the next 24 hours.
My routine is quite basic. I wake up one hour before I?m due at work, grab my painfully strong coffee and sit on the couch to soak in the glory that is SportsCenter.
One hour of nothing. No thinking, no jarring for position, no mechanics of human nature and the how to?s of dealing with one another, no one else to distract me?it?s just nothing. Just me and the wonderfully simple world of sports.
Maybe that?s why I enjoy sports so much; it?s not complicated or confusing. You either win or you lose (yeah, thanks I?m quite aware that there are ties, but hey you at least get a point for a tie in hockey, so just run with me here, folks). There isn?t much of a grey area in sports. Two teams, one goal. Simple. Basic. Soothing.
Life, alas, is not so similar.
Well, IT took home the Poker Night crown Saturday.
Tuggie and I rolled out with most of the Programmer Dollars. I?m quite pleased for taking their money. It fits in my pockets right nicely, thank you very much.
Top quotes of the night:
?Yeah, uh, um OK, so can we talk to the girls that live here??
?Dude, I thought that was a monster behind me!?
?What the fuck is Tequiza??
?It?s funny when he talks German.?
Good times.
The Rockets lost to the Mavs again last night and that means I have to do my part for public humiliation. So here?s my statement to the world*
I, Princess Fix IT, being of semi-sound mind, deem the following to be true.
The Mavericks outplayed, outperformed and outlasted the Rockets. The Mavericks showed their undeniable superiority and handed the Rockets their second loss of the season. Mark Cuban is the best owner that ever lived and all owners should strive to be just like him. The Mavericks are by far the best team in the great state of Texas.
sigh? man, I gotta stop taking these sucker bets!
*worlds may vary
Poker night tonight?bring on those hard earned Programmer Dollars, gentlemen cause I need yet another, new pair of shoes.
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Top searches that bring the folk to my site:
*booble
*princess fucking
*quiznos creatures
*red cape
*why do I need virus protection
*how to fix a jacuzzi\ mozilla/4.
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Should I create an Orkut community devoted to IT support for game developers? It?s a pretty specialized field, but there are plenty of times when I?m stumped and could use the help of other IT folk dealing with the same programs and issues.
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Is it April yet? I?m anxiously looking forward to Whiskeyfest.
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Rockets vs. Mavs tonight?The Creative Reactor will be disappointed in the result.
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I am not the center of attention?I?m just really loud.
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The nickname Princess Fix IT was vince's creation.
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Best IT Quote of the Week: ?It?s an anonymous survey.?
This makes me sick. Sick down to the core of my bones.
Any of you who saw Rick Reilly's (the world's greatest sportswriter, EVER) interview on OTL tonight, would feel just as inclined as I do to run out tomorrow and read the entire article.
More comments to come as soon as I get rid of the foul feeling currently consuming me.
The Powers That Be decided it was a smart idea to move some of the wee IT people over to hourly, instead of salary. I be one of the wee.
Why this isn?t a bad thing:
*After hours support = Overtime
That?s cash money in my pocket, dear reader.
Why this is a bad thing:
*The users, as usual, are the ones that will suffer the most. Want me to work past 6:00? Let me drop my fancy new screwdriver (it really is quite cool), hold on a minute while I call The Bossman and let?s see if he approves the OT. He doesn?t approve the OT? Sorry buddy boy, you?re fucked until 8:00 AM.
*Feel like taking a short lunch or showing up early for work, Princess? Think again, babe. The Law says no and no. If you want to work a minute over 80 hours, you can?t. It doesn?t matter if we pay you or not, we, The Company, are liable all the same.
*I feel that I should have a name tag and a lil paper white hat each time I approach The Fort?s half door; basically for some fucked up reason, I feel like I took a step back by being moved to hourly. It?s an ego thing, I guess.
*Stop me in the hall on my way back from lunch? No, you have to wait until I can send my ?I?m back and clocking in la de dah? email so I?m not docked 3 minutes pay.
I?ve said this before; money doesn?t really come into play for me, so the OT isn?t a Halleluiah moment by any means. I think I make a fair wage and I?m happy with my work. Sure, I would love to bring in fat checks and buy my sweet ass rims, but I?m comfortable enough. What I do want is freedom. Freedom to work when I want to work. What?s wrong with wanting to work more than 80 hours every two weeks at a job I love? Nuttin, honey.
I know, it really isn?t a huge deal, I?m really just rambling to ramble. Somebody thought they were doing us a favor and I?m sure when we have to pull another 24 hour shift, I will be rather thankful. Until then, I?ll just sit there staring at my computer screen like a dumbass until the clock strikes 9:00.
I came across this link over at spenceRant and all I can say is that it is absolutely stunning.
Go on...give a looksee.
I?ve always been a fan of shy, smart and geeky men. I can trace that back to my lil schoolgirl crushes and it was a constant throughout the rest of my life. Despite my inclination of years past to venture in the opposite direction, I always came back to my precious Geeky Boy.
There?s just something about a man that takes work to get to know, something about their quiet and shy qualities, their Underdog status. Some people like a challenge and geeky boys are a definite challenge. Pretty boys are easy, boring and often utterly clueless. When I was younger, it was tougher for me to find a geeky boy to share my time with because they just wouldn?t approach me. Kevin and I have discussed if we met in high school, would we have dated? The conclusion is absolutely not. I might have had a fondness for his geeky nature, but I wouldn?t have approached him and since he?s a shy man, he would have never approached me. Would he have enjoyed skipping school and getting high? Could we share reform school experiences and criminal records? Would I have jumped at the chance to join his study groups and discuss politics and the economy? Could we compare SAT scores and talk about college plans? Yeah, well, not exactly. Fortunately, circumstances and people change. I grew up and Kevin took a chance.
Now you might be thinking, why is The Princess rambling on (again)? What?s the point? Well, Valentine?s Day is right around the corner and I can?t get over the fact that it reminds me of being single. Being single and how much that one day in February really pissed me off. It didn?t make me mad that I was single, I was quite comfortable with that, but because I was consumed with thoughts about why isn?t every day like Valentine?s Day? Why do we need one special day designed specifically for declaring our love? Shouldn?t you always feel loved, get laid and eat yummy chocolate? Damn right we should! Hell, that?s practically my life motto! After discussing this a bit, Kevin brought up a good point; people like holidays, they like to have special days devoted to celebration, so why not? There's no sense in reading too much into it. Just enjoy it. Hmmmm...good point.
So in keeping with my new holiday spirit, Happy Valentine?s Day to you, Geeky Boys of the world, you?ll always have a special place in my heart?
I recently saw this utility in action and I think it will change video game programming as we know it.
A constant complaint around the halls at work is, ?Fucking build takes forever!? I don?t pretend I know why that is, but I do know how much it affects our users. IncrediBuild looks like a really cool tool and in theory, works much like a renderfarm in that it spreads the build process over a pool of machines and sends the final product back to you in record time. From what I hear, the PS2 compatibility needs a bit of work, but the XBOX code is ready to go.
I?m curious what you Red Capers out there think of it?
The most recent releases of CodeWarrior for the PS2 console, 3.6 and 3.6 SP1, have .NET integration (actually, you can install it for versions as far back as 3.04). It?s a pretty handy tool for our overworked programmers I suspect. The installation is fairly easy and can be executed either by standalone or via a recent version?s full install. Most installations of CW are repeat installs. What I mean by that is it?s very rare for me to come across a virgin machine, thus I have to use the standard tricks of getting the latest version on their machine or in some cases, multiple versions coexisting happily together. The .NET Integration is nowhere near as problematic as days past, but I did run into a bump or two along the way.
When installing this feature, an error might pop up to prevent the install continuing along its way. The error basically says, ?Ya know what Princess? I can?t find an environment variable for any CW version from 3.04 or higher despite the fact that you just installed it. Show me to your Command Line Tools, damnit! You?ll have to reinstall. Have a nice day. Mwahahahaha!?
Reinstall? You wish! You can?t make me reinstall, ya lil shit! Basically what happens is when you use the trick of an alternate install directory for newer versions, which I highly recommend, the installation of both versions, whether they are still on the machine or not, will show up in the CWFolder_PS2 path by default. Fortunately the solution is quite simple. Edit the environment variable to point to the latest CW install. You don?t want to point it directly to the Command Line Tools, it doesn?t seem to care for that much direction. Just give it a soft nudge to the root install directory and you?ll be integrating with the best of them. Whether or not you can get the .NET integration to work with multiple versions on one machine remains to be determined as of this date. I have a sneaking suspicion the day will come that I will look a programmer in the eyes and say the following, ?You have one version working, don?t push your luck, buddy boy.?
Is anyone else thoroughly confused about Quizno?s latest ad campaign?
Tonight?s Monster House was couldn?t have been more up my alley. The theme was ?Sports Entertainment? and I can only hope that one day I have as many TVs as this house now has gracing its walls. Don?t get me started on The Pit because I?ll find myself drooling again.
I think MH should have a complete house build. I?m talking from the foundation up. They could combine all the previous episodes, one room or section of the house for each episode aired. Completely trick it out with as much Monster quality as possible then give the house away to a loyal viewer. Shit, I?ll even volunteer to be that loyal viewer! I?ll make that sacrifice, yeah, uh sacrifice. How does this not work out for everyone?
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So along with all the other folk, I find myself along for the ride over at Orkut. I have hopes this will bring about a new wave in friend making, but I?m not holding my breath. I?m easy to find, so just look for Princess Fix IT.
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Almost every episode of American Chopper ends with Paul Sr. stating the following,
"This has to be the most incredible thing we've ever experienced."
Oh, man Big Daddy Sr...this is just the beginning.
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I really shouldn't have to clean out over 500 malware files with 5 different spyware removal tools as often as I do. Broadband access really isn't that expensive, so how's about you surfin for porn on your own dime rather then at work? Cool? Cool....dumbass.
Thursday was a very good day for the Princess. It was one of those days that serves as a small reminder that I do indeed, love my job. As you know dear reader, that can waver on occasion, or at least appear to waver from some of my past musings, but the enjoyment and satisfaction I receive from my job may not translate on this site as much as it should. So let?s set the scene shall we?
6:02 PM Myself and Tuggie exit The Fort, ready to end our day. Walking down the hall, a gaggle of The Original Red Cape Brigade floods out of a nearby office, beckoning for our technical expertise, so naturally, we do our duty and step in. Awaiting us is the following message, ?No operating system found.? Now you may shudder at the serious nature of this message dear reader, but not we IT Folk. We live for this shit. Immediately I ask the user a question, get the answer I was looking for, wave my wand and tad ah, all is well.
6:05 PM Myself and Tuggie exit the user?s office and venture out into the winter weather to grab a smoke and make our way home.
Three minutes and my job was complete. Now those of you with a technical grasp on things may know the question I asked of the user and have the knowledge to determine the cause of the error, but that isn?t my point. What gave me such a tremendous dose of satisfaction, aside from performing under the massive pressure that is TORCB, is that I had enough sense for that to be my first question. Technical support is a precise mixture of knowledge, research and communication. If you do not ask a user the proper questions, you will not come to a fast and hard solution. Users are not prone to offer up information freely, so you have to be able to extract it from them. As delicately as possible, of course. Alright, alright, so I?m not known for my delicate nature, but you get the point. Ahem.
This particular solution was beyond simple and I write this entry not to tout my knowledge, but to express why I enjoy what I do. To walk into a user?s office, ask a question and offer up a solution within minutes, equates to a very satisfying moment. To then realize that one question saved a tremendous amount of your own time as well theirs, is very important.
For those of you still curious what the problem was, it was a basic case of an external drive plugged into the USB port while the user was booting up his machine. It confuses the PC?s boot order, so unplugging it brings about proper functionality by booting to the system drive. It certainly wasn?t my proudest technological moment, but it brought about more internal justification that I am where I?m supposed to be, that I am fit to do this for a living and that it makes me very happy.
It was a good day.