We have comments

Yes, we have comments now! Thanks to free people at Squawkbox, feel free to comment away! This is my parting gift to Sub-J, may he comment merrily all week.

Lookie, visitors

Thanks to B's post at GTDB we have some visitors! Woohoo! I'm sure SubJ and I will drive them off with our witterings soon enough..

8 days and counting..

Apologies that I've been almost incognito all week for regular (?) readers. I've been working my tail off trying to get everything finished or handed off at work which will allow me a blissful two weeks of wedding / vacation without interruption. Finally on my penultimate day of work I've broken the back of it and we have a solid plan moving forwards, so I'm free! Wahey!

So what's been going on this week? Well more than a few things, been so busy I haven't signed on to Xbox live in over two weeks now. I'm either so tired from working out, playing raquetball or trying to finish up some wedding related matters sometimes bed with a good book is the only thing that appeals! Good news on the Wedding front is that I finally finished the CD's for the reception music. Really very happy with them indeed - took Kim and I about a week of choosing tunes which should go down well, then whittling them down over several bottles of champagne to a select few.

It's difficult when you realise that there's going to be so much cultural diversity and age difference at the wedding. We have my parents who love the booze, and Kim's parents who are straight-edge. We have my friends from England, and our friends from all over the world (people are arriving from America, Brazil, even Tokyo (Ravi is a nutter)). What you end up with then is an eclectic mix of 60's rock, loungecore, hip hop, pop, electronica and other genres you ain't never heard of, kid!

Hopefully it will go well and people will get their groove on. I know I'm going to. The speech has taken shape over the last couple of weeks and I'm down to 5 minutes which is a good amount of time. Hopefully I'll get the delivery right and get a few laughs - I might be banking on the fact that people will have had 2 hours worth of free drinks by then which should lubricate matters somewhat. I think Dallas is still working on his, probably right through the ceremony too!

I've had a lot of questions from people asking what the venues are like so I thought I'd put up a few pictures of the Church in St Thomas where we're going to get married, and also of the Ritz where we'll be hosting the cocktail hour, dinner and reception. You can click on the strips to see the full image of course.



The Ritz Carlton, St Thomas. Site for Wedding Reception.


Honeymoon: Peter Island Beach


Honeymoon: Peter Island Beach View


Honeymoon: Peter Island Dining Outdoors


Honeymoon: Peter Island Pool


Honeymoon: Peter Island Shore Overview


Honeymoon: Peter Island Spa


Just looking at these photos makes me want to high-tail it out of work and fly there already! Unfortunately, that will have to wait until Tuesday. I have to say, I'm just phenomenally excited by all the people that managed to make it to our special day. When we began planning we figured it was going to be tiny, but to have all our friends, family and loved ones in the same place at the same time (probably for the last time ever!) is just crazy. I'm also looking forward to the inevitable crazy parties at La Maison d'Amor. This place is phat as hell, and to have 15 friends staying there, whoo-eee!

After the wedding we'll be kicking around in St Thomas for a week while everyone else is there, and then taking the ferry across to our second week of honeymoon on Peter Island, which is quite a bit more secluded and romantic. We're talking oversized hammock on the beach, we're talking 'honeymoon beach' where they only let one couple at a time on for an evening, and you have to 'pay tribute to the beach', we're talking all inclusive baby.

Bring.
It.
On.

Archiving rules

It's a rolling 7 days. Rack on with your bad self, Captain Blogger.

Archiving sucks

Alright, I think I have this archive thingy working now. I was being a bit dense and wondering why, after I archived, all the content on the main page was still here. Now I'm assuming that either it's a rolling 7 day's worth of posts, or that my memory is failing and I began posting on Sunday instead of Saturday. Either way, I think I had better leave off the complex maff stuff until after I've had more coffee (courtesy of the wedding registry).

Oh! Speaking of Wedding registries, check out the dope cleaver that Sub-J and Mrs-J got me. Now thats a GIFT, a man gift in the truest sense of the word. I like motorbikes, I like the smell of gasoline, and I sure as hell like big fucking knives. Thank you both! Now I can cleave and chop and try to take over small nations.

Nothing is free on the internet

After 20 minutes of perusing supposed free stat counters, and finding nasty spyware, compulsory banner ads, 20minute-loading sites, and hideous fonts, I happened across statcounter.com, a nice, fast, simple but effective site that gave me what I was looking for with CatSpit. Props to them for having their act together. Go visit them, use them, and give them babies.

Okay, Biggot

Alright, so I'm a big idiot. Serves me right for blogging before I'd had much of a read of the sites on my previous post. I went there expecting to hate it, wanting to hate it because inside I probably thought I was so cool to poke fun at something everybody else was saying was huge. What I find instead is a witty, smart site that I felt really embodied a lot of personality and while I disagree with a lot of his views, quite intensely in some cases, I can't help but like the guys Raed and Salam. Their style of writing is very freeform, flow-of-consciousness stuff that I dig. Especially this bit:

this thing is called a Zirengi, I have no idea what it symbolizes but every group of lamenters has one

Or this one:

I am concentrating all my efforts on growing a beard these days. I read on a web site somewhere that if I sit in total darkness with little balls made of aluminium foil stuck in my ears it will grow faster. I have been giving it a try for a week now, it is not working. I sit in front of the mirror for hours willing my beard to grow.

Fucking SWEET! That's very funny to me.

So now that we've established that I'm an idiot, and I have a new favourite web site, on with the weekend.

Risin' with the birds

Woke up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning, how silly is that? Anyway I got to reading this article in the morning, which was pretty interesting. Obviously I'm happy that technology is giving people joy and more creative outlets in Iraq, hell they need a break. Additionally, I think information should be ubiquitous, ideas and opinions should be freely exchanged. Hell, I work for a BI company so that goes hand in hand.

I wonder though, if you could put a marketing spin on anything to do with a blog, or if this guy's writings are really that good. It would make interesting reading though, as the diary went from 'Monday, got up, had coffee, prayed, ate breakfast' to 'Friday, May God help us, the bombs are raining down all around, the anti-aircraft flak lights up the night sky, and there are special forces in the village'. Interesting transition. I wonder whether the web log is truly well-written, thought provoking material or whether it's simply the content matter that people find so scintillating. War is so fucking thrilling after all, right? It's like a free movie every night when you come home from work.

See you in a week.

Well, I'm off to Florida tomorrow, so I'll talk to all y'all in about a week. When I come back, Phyxie will be on his way to getting married so it'll just be you and me. We can act all cozy like and cuddle.

Speaking of athletes..

Who told this li'l guy that only humans are allowed to enter the race? Go little guy, go!

No words...

Let's hope the next time some spoiled athlete decides to spout off at the mouth about how his sport is like war, or how people should pay them what they owe them he stops instead to think about Pat Tillman. Tillman turned down a multi-million dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to become an Army Ranger after 9/11. He was killed in action in Afghanistan at the age of 27.

Rest in peace Pat.

Believe that.

Maybe Bink and I will ride up there and kick his ass until he get's scribbling again.

Oh, fo' sho. I'd beat that ass like it owed me money.

Freedom at any price?

Serious for a second here. Seriously, no fucking around. I think freedom of the press is a crock of shit. Think it's coincidence that Memory Hole is hosed? I don't. People are giving their lives for our [I'm English] countries. Don't cheapen it by not allowing the publishing of a sombre reminder of those who paid the ultimate price for their life's work. In my opinion the picture was tasteful and not gratuitous at all. It's a stark reminder, a slap between the eyes, of just how much people love their country. To fire the woman responsible for publishing it is saddening to me. So let's get this straight, you can put up live television footage of thousands of people burning and jumping to their demise, their terror clearly stricken across their faces but you can't show a haunting reminder of the deadly price that is an armed invasion? Sure makes sense to me, Roger.

Regardless of motivation for war, invasion or otherwise, these men and women signed up to do whatever their Government asked them to without question. I salute that regardless of my political opinions. In fact, I think I'm generally anti-politics and anti-having-political opinions. I reckon Adam had it right when he mentioned that he goes out of his way to avoid reading or viewing news of any sort and generally he's a much happier person for it. But then again, he broke his collarbone playing Ultimate (again). So what the fuck does he know?

Castles, merf

Martins website is the most hideous creation EVER. He may as well give it blinking text, flashing neon backgrounds and flash overlays. George, get with the program sonny - stop making website updates and finish the damn book. We don't want to know what you're thinking or feeling, happy or sad. We just don't care. FINISH THE BOOK!

Apparently he's appearing on July 12-16, 2004 at Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. Maybe Bink and I will ride up there and kick his ass until he get's scribbling again.

Homecoming

I have to agree with Scalzi on this one. Unfortunately The Memory Hole site seems to be hosed, so I can't post a similar picture.

For the record, I think Hussein was a scumbag and his removal can only be good for Iraq, the region and the gene pool as a whole, however it would have been nice to know the real reasons we were going over there. Every person who came home with a flag draped over them deserves at least that much.

Owie.

I'm very uncomfortable today. Maybe it's the fact that I'm tired because I'm rereading this bastard's work until late in the evening. (Oh, and George, please stop fucking around with your knights and finish the goddamned book. Thanks. Really, thanks.)

Maybe it's because my cube isn't nearly as ergonmically stylish as my last cube. My chair is too low so my arms are all out of whack and my wrists keep rubbing up against the edge of the desk. Whaaaa.

Maybe because in 3 days I'll be here and the anticipation is making it physically impossible to exist anywhere but there.

It's probably that last one.

Suburbanjoe = Team Binky

Soon I shall begin posting with our hella cool new logo at XBLF, so for those of you who come from there, make no mistake, the Bink is in the building.

So, why such a big...suit? Sorry, random Talking Heads reference. I mean, why the two names? Well, for a while I had my own site called suburbanjoe.org that was relatively prosperous in that no one knew who I was and I had to pay family to visit it. That folded due to accounting improprieties and my small stint in jail for "spending time" with an underage chinchilla. It was then, when my spirits were at their lowest that I bought an Xbox. Maybe it was the liquor, maybe it was the lonliness, maybe it was the need to play with a controller the size of my head.

Once I had an Xbox and then got broadband, Live was just a matter of time. Some lout had already claimed the mantle of suburbanjoe, and with the negative stigma attached to the name, I decided that I needed something new. Thus, I decided to use the name that had stricken fear in the hearts of 3rd World dictators who had run afoul of the CIA, the feared assassin, Team Binky. Confident that most deposed dictators don't have access to high speed internet, and if they did, wouldn't be gaming from 7PM - 8PM EST, I took back the name that I had used so well in the early 70's. 1870's that is. It is with this name that I battle with fellow Live gamers, offering myself as a sacrifice to pad their stats and make them feel better about themselves. You haven't gamed until you've killed Team Binky, as everyone seems to do. A lot.

So, in short, he is I and I am him, slim with the tilted brim on 20 inch rims.

Hmmmm...

you were blessed with a brain and the ability to creatively think for yourself

That's an enormously optimistic assumption.

A small tutorial for SUV drivers.

In summary. Can you PLEASE stop hitting me?

I'm going to speak very clearly, and write small sentences for those SUV drivers who may be tuning in today. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against SUV's - to me they kind of epitomise everything I moved to America for. Unnecessarily large, hulking gas-guzzling monsters built for climbing mountains and 95% of them never seeing any dirt. It's the deliberate excess I love - you make your money, you spend it how you want, mate. No sweat.

However. I am a motorbike rider. I am the natural born enemy of SUV's. I think I have some kind of yuppie-attractant in my blood or something. Any time I get in any trouble on the roads, it always seems to be with SUV drivers. Normally I am quick to dismiss a stereotype, but lately I'm thinking they exist for a reason. My last accident on a motorbike was due to an SUV full of kiddies and a Mum turning left out of a side road onto my main road right in front of me without looking. Brake-brake-brake-nowheretogo-shit-shit-THUNK-wheee as I fly over it. Bike totalled, thank you may I have another.

Props to her Geico insurance for giving me enough money to buy a new bike. So it's a new bike I ride in 2004 - lovely thing it is too. But I digress. This morning's SUV moment comes to you courtesy of the nice but dim woman I met at a traffic light right by my house. Traffic's all backed up, everyone stops, check my rear views, what a lovely morning, I love spring riding, it makes me so happy. Green light, yay! Throttle up, clutch slip, begin to pull away-THUNK-what the fuck? Try to pull away, can't. Bike stalls. I look back and there's a FUCKING ENORMOUS SUV up on the TOP of my rear wheel! I thought my tyre had popped under the weight. I look back, wait for the kindly SUV to reverse off my bike and then we pull over to inspect the damage. Luckily all it seems that I have sustained is a rather wonky license plate (I think they make them out of silly putty). Honda, I love you and all your little engineering pixies, thank you for keeping my bike intact. No misaligned wheel, no flat spot on the tyres, no puncture, nothing.

To SUV Drivers, I say:

This is a Red light. It means stop. Not on top of the vehicle or unfortunate soul in front of you, but nicely behind it leaving a small breathing space. It does not mean slip your clutch and creep forwards in traffic, nor does it mean call your long lost sister twice removed on your mobile phone. It means stop.



This is a green light. It means go. It does not mean honk your horn as soon as you see this light. It does not mean begin to pull away if you're behind 4 vehicles that have not begun moving yet. IT DOES NOT MEAN DRIVE OVER EVERYONE ELSE BECAUSE YOU SPACED OUT.

I humbly beg you on my virtual knees, you were blessed with a brain and the ability to creatively think for yourself. Engage brain!

New Music Wednesday Redux

Go buy the new Iron & Wine cd. Just do it. Trust me.

Are you still reading this? Go on now.

New Music Wednesday

I bought the new Patty Griffin cd yesterday. It's good, with Useless Desires" being an amazing standout, but I fear that Flaming Red was an anomaly. That's a shame, cause that record roxored the boxor. Oh well, we'll always have Wiggley Fingers. I guess bringing the rock is what these guys are for.

Mine, all mine.

Since starting his new daycare, my son has picked up some new words, mainly "no" and "mine". I can only imagine that these words are essential for carving out the toddler fiefdoms that make up daycare. While I'm glad that he can express that which is his (apparantly everything), you try and have a conversation with someone who only says "no" and "mine" and see how long it takes before you want to hurt them. The world record is 19 femtoseconds.

Conversations usually go like this:
"How was your day?"
"Mine!"
"Yes, your day. How was it?"
"No."
"No what?"
"Mine!"

At dinner, when eating time is through, a sentiment usually expressed with the throwing and/or smearing of food, we ask Ben, "Are you done?" to which his reply is to put his spoon on his bowl, hold it out and say "Mine". In this case, "Mine" means "I'm done now, but I'm coming back for that motherfucker. Believe that." At least, that's what I think it means. In my world, 18 month olds speak like Dolemite. Can you dig it?

Last night, as I was reading to Ben about Bartholmew Cubbins and his environmental problems, all I heard was "Mine, mine, mine" until I got tired of the pronounciations and put him to bed. As I lay him down, I wound up his music globe and said goodnight before I left. "Mine" he replied, and I thought, "Yes I am."

More boxes than you can shake a stick at

Holy crap, I'm surrounded by boxes. Kim, being the industrious little bee that she is has all our little details, wedding favours, decorations all packed up in boxes and ready to send off to the Ritz in St Thomas for our wedding reception.

I'm amazed how she keeps track of it all - men's minds weren't created for such infinitessimal attention to detail. Good thing she's got it covered I say. I'll be there to provide a finger for the sticky tape or look up shipping costs online, or maybe to write a blurb about it. Useless male, I know, I know.. It's been hot as hell today, so we'll be off for a night ride in a few minutes when it cools down to clear the mind of today's series of frantic episodes at work. Or maybe we'll just stop by Dairy Queen and eat ice cream outside.

Blurrrgh, and I didn't even have time to work out today. I should have got up earlier and got my weights done before getting to work. Shame I pay too much attention to the little voices in my head nagging me about a thousand things that need doing that nobody else is following up on. Want something done properly... I guess I get pissed when I see I'm first in the office and often last out. Ahh screw it, what a baby eh? Should have worked out. Tomorrow sees the next phase of the new routine - 50% max for 40 reps. Fuuuuuuck! If Kim hadn't already won our 10-pound weight loss bet I think I'd be doing more cardio, but I just can't stand it. It's so terminally dull, even with music.

Aha! The boxes are finished. Time to ride, bitch!

Blue eyed Jesus

If I am ever to find myself in the company of Jay-Z and we're discussing the fact that the eyes of my $25,000 Jesus medallion are too blue, I fear I may drop dead from all of the surrealism. I think the new definition of "too much money" should include the financial ability to drop 25 large on neck-borne religious icons.

Found this in my shoe this morning

There's many reasons I'm glad I'm not in the armed forces. These nasty suckers are just two of them. Earrrgh!

Please, no.

No. No. No. Please, no.

Well, duh.

And he wonders why I left. :P

Xen and the art of software release management

First - welcome to Brandon. Since he ran like a rat from the ship it will be a pleasure to collaborate with him on something. Even if I have to beat him. Whatever this CatSpit thing is or turns into..

Second. Let me tell you how fucking stupid people are. You might need to understand a little bit about how software is made to really appreciate my frustration here. Given that I've been working for this company for around 7 years, you'd think I'd have the hang of it by now and not get pissed off with all the same shit which repeats cycle on cycle? Hell no, sister. People never cease to amaze me.

OK, so a little project management for those of you who don't know. There's a 3-way tradeoff, right? You have resources, you have software quality, and you have the schedule. If you need to aggressively push 1 of them and the other two are fixed then something generally gives. If you need to shorten the delivery cycle, you generally are gonna need more resources, right? If you want a better release, you're gonna need more time to test, capiche?

Take a practical example, oh, say from hypothetical recent experience. We need to ship this software first week of April. The quality's shit - we slip the release. We set a new target date, ramp up the testing and find all of these stability / memory issues. Typically these issues take a long time to resolve. Nobody wants to acknowledge this so the date stays the same while we 'work extra hard' to try and hit it. We patch builds, run tests, run tests on top of those tests, run weekends, run nights to try and isolate them. Whatever you do, it's always the same end result - 1 week of hell where the developers check in anything they can to try and patch these issues. You think you have the final build, run the final tests and... What the fuck happened? All tests are failing, memory is off the chart, the server's crashing, we're hitting breakpoints in the code..

This, my friends, is known as shovelling code over the fence, and it ain't pretty. My peeve isn't so much with that as with the fact that you're in the last week of release right? You've been broadcasting the date for the final build for about a month now and everyone knows about it. You make the build. You freeze the code and lock it down so that you prevent any more checkins. Once the build is made and the date is past, I guarantee, I fucking guaranteethat the release manager will get 5-10 requests for new check-ins from pissant whiney little developers who hadn't paid attention. Typical excuses you will hear:

• "But this is really important, we have to have it for this release"


• "I wasn't aware we were making the final build today"


• "I've just been on holiday for 5 months in the Bahamas and came back this week"


• "My customer reported this issue 3 weeks after code freeze, can we fix it for this release?"


• "I'm a fucking stupid cockmaster general who doesn't pay attention, gets paid way more than I deserve and I write shitty code. Because I think I'm better than you, you need to let me check in".

Ok so that last one was made-up, but if I heard someone being honest, I'd probably be more receptive to their wishes. Until then, no you can't check-in, dickhead. No, we won't fix that customer issue you've been sitting on for 4 months, wank-for-brains. And the next time you take a vacation you leave a point of contact, smeghead.

Fuck all of you, I'm gonna check in a virus and be done with it. Who wants to be a project manager?

I push miracle whips.

Greetings.

Thanks to Andy for giving me a place to spit. I used to have my own place, called suburbanjoe.org, but alas, it folded. Maybe I can get some folks back, maybe not. Here's the background, I'm 31, I have a wife, a son, and a pretty typical suburban existance. Thrilling, I know.

So Bush isn't a fascist. Well, there's a fucking relief. While they're at it, they can publish an article saying that he isn't a lemur. That can be Bush's new campaign slogan, "Bush, he's not a fascist." Ashcroft I'm not so sure about.

I'm playing the latest Bond game now and boy is it ever, um, Bondish. It has some good action moments but is largely unsatisfying. I do find it interesting to read all the folks who compare the game to an intereactive movie. I'm not sure what the fuck's wrong with their DVD player, but if this game is like an interactive movie, here's what a movie in their world must be like:

Step 1: Wait for all of the stupid logo thingys to end because you can't skip through them.
Step 2: Pick a chapter to watch.
Step 3. Oh, Bond got shot. Start watching the chapter again.
Step 4: Oh, Bond fell off a building. Start watching the chapter again.
Step 5: Oh, Bond is too busy running in a corner to realize he's getting his ass blown off. Start watching chapter again.
Step 6: Finish chapter. Pick another chapter.
Step 7. Oh, the Porsche got blown up. Start watching chapter again.
Step 8. Oh, the Porsche fell off a cliff. Start watching chapter again.
Step 9. Kill self.

Feh.

6 days until I'm in Florida. Gods give me strength.

Rossi - greatest racer ever?

I can't believe it. He did it.

Well, I can actually. For once, I had it right. The critics, the manufacturers, the fans, everyone was writing Rossi off at the end of last Moto GP season when he had the nuts to leave the Honda Repsol team in favour of an inferior Yamaha bike. I mean everyone - they all said it was about the bike, that he had no chance this year, that he'd be lucky to podium. Mmmhmm. The first Moto GP race at Phakisa, South Africa today was his chance to shove two fingers clearly in their face and he didn't disappoint. The race itself was absolutely fantastic. Rossi and Biaggi goin' at it as fast as they could, often only a foot or so between their wheels as they banked over at 120mph flat out in 4th. Crazy. Dallas and I were whimpering at the TV by the end of it. Those guys have balls the size of elephants.

Nobody else was in the race - even Gib, who'd won here last year. Great television - may it go on all season long. Sure, I'll take a second to fluff up my feathers a bit and stick my chest out, why not? I said he'd win this year and I'm sticking to it. Greatest. Rider. Ever. There's something about him, either his passion or his natural ability that makes you want to believe he can do it. Of course, now he has all the media flocking back to him, already predicting a classic Rossi victory this year - you can all stuff it. Stick to your opinions and don't be soft - just admit you were wrong.

Disappointing result for the British boys, I thought Shakey would have done better. I'm really rooting for him this season. McWilliams continues to bring up the rear - after that horrible Proton ride last year he's probably still coming to terms with the power of the new beast at his disposal. Hodgson retired due to mechanical problems it seems. Come on boys, you know all of England's behind you willing you to shake up those GP vets a bit!

I've also got to give some big respect to the footage - the new rear-facing cameras on the bikes gave us some heart-stopping feeds to scream at the TV at, wheel-to-wheel stuff. I would have sworn blind Biaggi was about to mow Rossi over at one point. They seem a lot better than last year when the frames would jump all over the place. This year they seem to have some crazy kind of steady-cam setup which is hot. The Heli shots were also better than ever. So why can't I watch it in fucking high definition, you sons of gibbons? I'll pay double, hell I'll pay TRIPPLE what I'm paying now to get decent pictures. I'm sick of cable TV's shitty digital feed with no HD in the future for the speed channel. Sniff.

Onto the next race - Jerez on May 2nd. Ooh, that's when I leave for my wedding. Thank you, beloved Tivo.

I love Moto GP. You can keep your Formula 1 you boring bastards.

In the beginning..

I finally decided to get around to writing something.

Why?

Who knows - I've always been interested in what my friends are up to and reading their logs just seems kinda cool. For the last two or so years I always said I would get around to it, but never did. New motorbikes, scuba lessons, marriage, working out and silly work schedules might do that to you, but if I'm honest I never wanted to pony up the time and try to write something every single day. I mean, who wants to read the meaningless drivel about everyday occurences to other people? It's no longer bleeding edge to have a personal webspace, no longer do you feel ultra-hip just to begin carving out your own piece of the interweb thingy. So why the fuck bother? Perhaps I'm just looking for a way to look back over the years 20 years from now to see events, memories and fun times. Perhaps I'm looking for a creative outlet even though I have little to no creative skills. Perhaps I'm looking for another forum to vent my personal pet peeves.

I came to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter. If it's something you want to do then you should do it even if you can't find a good reason for doing so. Act on impulse, because it makes you feel good and because you can. So here we are, writing my first post while I'm printing off Wedding Ceremony Programs for Kim's and my special day in St Thomas next month. They look amazing, and I'm getting more and more excited each day.