I'm not one to navel-gaze. Particularly, I don't spend time thinking about what went on in high school. Or college. I therefore don't spend time thinking about people in either high school or college -- unless I still know them. Put another way: I have no plans to go to any reunions. The people I'd want to see are already one phone call (or email) away. Sleeping dogs lie. And, honestly, high school is about the most unimportant 4 years anyone can waste their life on. Socially, I mean. As soon as you leave high school, the people you knew there no longer matter. Unless some bond beyond "we went to high school together" applies, that is.

High school is meant to turn a gawky adolescent who knows nothing about anything into a less gawky adolescent with middling knowledge in the basics. In other words: The people you knew in high school aren't the people they are now. Unless you're in high school now. Mathematically: important in high school != important in real life.

College is different. If the people you met and knew in college can benefit you in the here-and-now, then you should not write them off. This is why people pay for built-in friends when they join a fraternity or sorority. But the high school dudes have got to go. Unless they went to a college and came out with a degree that can benefit you, of course. Then keep them around.

I hear you saying the word "insensitive". I laugh.

We're on the same page then. Good. Forward thinking... it'll serve you well.

So I was listening to P.I.L. just now and thought of high school. I thought of all the people that I knew there. The guy that stole my Men At Work LP, the fuckers who popped out from behind the bushes to sucker-punch me in the back of the head so they could steal my friend's walkman, the two guys I beat up outside a mall during the Christmas holiday buying season because they wouldn't leave my friends alone (and because one of them hit me first), and so on. I remembered surfing on cars, inhabiting pre-built houses, finding new places for roaming parties (what you kids call "raves"), making hot dogs for the principal, meeting new people and influencing new friends. There are exactly three of those people who matter now. One of whom I wish I knew how to get a hold of...

I recalled a number of tapes I made for people, and one P.I.L. song in particular. That's what bought it back. Old times are good, but they keep you from experiencing new times. So I wasted some new time writing about the old time. And you know what? Every time I hear "Smash it Up Pt. 1" by The Damned, I'm going to get a tiny bit nostalgic. But I know that none of that wool-gathering matters in the real world.

According to the Star Wars Villain Name Generator, my villainous Star Wars name is "Barbeque Fett".

Yeah, you heard right. Barbeque-mothergrabbin-Fett.

You got some kind a problem with that?

When a circuit interrupter at a utility substation fails, what happens to the 2000 amps of 500KV AC current running through it? Why, a big-assed electrical arc 3 stories tall is what happens.

I've got ths Linux box at work that I use occasionally. It was built using one of our "offcial" images, but I recently found out that the automated updating process wasn't hitting this particular machine. "I thought you were updating that box youself..." is what I heard. So a-patching I will go.

Since it's a Red hat 7.3 machine, it's no longer supported by Red Hat's up2date service. So installing apt seemed like a good solution. Turns out this machine was more out of date than I had imagined:

wrhodes@foo:/tmp $ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Calculating Upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded
4Suite Canna Canna-devel Canna-libs FreeWnn FreeWnn-common GConf GConf-devel ImageMagick LPRng ORBit ORBit-devel Omni Omni-foomatic PyXML SDL SDL_image SDL_mixer SDL_net SysVinit VFlib2 VFlib2-devel WindowMaker WindowMaker-libs Wnn6-SDK Wnn6-SDK-devel XFree86 XFree86-100dpi-fonts XFree86-75dpi-fonts XFree86-ISO8859-15-100dpi-fonts XFree86-ISO8859-15-75dpi-fonts XFree86-ISO8859-2-100dpi-fonts XFree86-ISO8859-2-75dpi-fonts XFree86-ISO8859-9-100dpi-fonts XFree86-ISO8859-9-75dpi-fonts XFree86-cyrillic-fonts XFree86-devel XFree86-libs XFree86-tools XFree86-twm XFree86-xdm XFree86-xfs Xaw3d Xaw3d-devel Xconfigurator a2ps abiword alchemist amanda amanda-client ami ami-gnome apel apmd arpwatch arts aspell aspell-ca aspell-da aspell-de aspell-en-ca aspell-en-gb aspell-es aspell-fr aspell-it aspell-nl aspell-no aspell-pt aspell-pt_BR aspell-sv audiofile audiofile-devel aumix authconfig autoconf autoconvert autoconvert-xchat autofs automake autorun balsa bash bc bg5ps binutils bison blas blas-man bonobo bonobo-devel bug-buddy bzip2 bzip2-devel bzip2-libs cWnn cWnn-common cdecl cdlabelgen cdp cdparanoia chkconfig cipe console-tools control-center control-center-devel cpio cpp cracklib cracklib-dicts ctags curl curl-devel cyrus-sasl cyrus-sasl-devel cyrus-sasl-md5 cyrus-sasl-plain dateconfig db1 db1-devel db2 db3 db3-devel db3-utils ddd ddskk dhcpcd diffutils docbook-style-dsssl docbook-utils docbook-utils-pdf dos2unix dosfstools doxygen dump e2fsprogs e2fsprogs-devel ed eel efax eject emacs emacs-leim enscript esound esound-devel expat expat-devel fam fam-devel findutils firewall-config flex foomatic fortune-mod freetype freetype-devel ftp fvwm2 fvwm2-icons gaim gal galeon gawk gcc gcc-c++ gcc-chill gcc-g77 gcc-java gcc-objc gdbm gdbm-devel gdk-pixbuf gdk-pixbuf-devel gdk-pixbuf-gnome gdm gedit gettext gftp ghostscript giftrans gimp gimp-devel glade glibc glibc-common glibc-devel gmp gmp-devel gnome-applets gnome-audio gnome-audio-extra gnome-core gnome-core-devel gnome-games gnome-games-devel gnome-libs gnome-libs-devel gnome-print gnome-utils gnome-vfs gnome-vfs-extras gnorpm gnumeric gnupg gnuplot gphoto gpm gpm-devel gq grep groff groff-perl grub gtk+ gtk+-devel gtk-engines gtkhtml guile gzip hdparm hotplug htmlview hwbrowser ical imap indent indexhtml info initscripts ipchains iproute iputils jadetex jisksp14 joe kWnn kakasi kakasi-devel kbdconfig kdbg kdeaddons-kate kdeaddons-kicker kdeaddons-konqueror kdeaddons-noatun kdeadmin kdeartwork kdeartwork-locolor kdebase kdebindings kdebindings-kmozilla kdelibs kdelibs-devel kdepim kdevelop kdoc koffice kon2 kon2-fonts krb5-devel krb5-libs krbafs krbafs-devel ksconfig ksymoops kterm kudzu kudzu-devel lapack lapack-man less lesstif lesstif-devel lha libao libao-devel libcap libgal7 libgcj libgcj-devel libglade libglade-devel libgnomeprint15 libgtop libgtop-devel libjpeg libjpeg-devel libmng libmng-devel libogg libogg-devel libole2 libpcap librep librep-devel librsvg libstdc++ libstdc++-devel libtabe libtabe-devel libtiff libtiff-devel libtool libtool-libs libungif libungif-devel libuser libvorbis libvorbis-devel libxml libxml-devel libxml2 libxslt licq licq-gnome licq-kde lm_sensors locale_config lockdev lockdev-devel logrotate logwatch lokkit losetup m4 magicdev mailcap man-pages mc mew mingetty miniChinput mkbootdisk mkinitrd mktemp mkxauth mount mouseconfig mozilla mozilla-chat mozilla-devel mozilla-dom-inspector mozilla-js-debugger mozilla-mail mozilla-nspr mozilla-nspr-devel mozilla-nss mozilla-nss-devel mozilla-psm mpage mpg321 mt-st mysql mysql-devel mysql-server nautilus nautilus-mozilla ncftp ncompress ncurses ncurses-devel net-tools netpbm netpbm-devel netpbm-progs newt newt-devel nfs-utils njamd nmap nmap-frontend nscd ntp ntsysv nvi-m17n nvi-m17n-canna oaf oaf-devel octave openjade pam pam-devel pam_krb5 parted passwd patch pax pciutils pciutils-devel pcre pcre-devel pdksh perl perl-CGI perl-CPAN perl-DB_File perl-DateManip perl-Digest-MD5 perl-File-MMagic perl-HTML-Parser perl-HTML-Tagset perl-MIME-Base64 perl-NDBM_File perl-Parse-Yapp perl-Storable perl-URI perl-XML-Dumper perl-XML-Encoding perl-XML-Grove perl-XML-Parser perl-XML-Twig perl-libnet perl-libwww-perl perl-libxml-enno perl-libxml-perl perl-suidperl pidentd pine pinfo pkgconfig popt portmap printconf printconf-gui procmail procps psgml psmisc pspell pwdb pygnome pygnome-libglade pygtk pygtk-libglade python python-devel python-docs qt qt-designer qt-devel radvd raidtools rdate readline readline-devel redhat-config-network redhat-config-users redhat-release reiserfs-utils rep-gtk rep-gtk-gnome rep-gtk-libglade rhn_register rhn_register-gnome rmt rpm rpm-build rpm-devel rpm-python rpmfind samba-client samba-common sane-backends sane-backends-devel sane-frontends sawfish screen scrollkeeper sed semi sendmail sendmail-cf sendmail-devel sendmail-doc serviceconf setserial setup sgml-common sh-utils shapecfg sharutils skkdic skkinput slang slang-devel smpeg sndconfig sox specspo stat strace sudo swig switchdesk switchdesk-gnome switchdesk-kde sysklogd sysstat tWnn taipeifonts tcl tcpdump tetex tetex-afm tetex-dvilj tetex-dvips tetex-fonts tetex-latex tetex-xdvi texinfo textutils time timeconfig timidity++ tix tk tkinter tmpwatch traceroute tree ttfonts ttfonts-ja ttfonts-ko ttfonts-zh_CN ttfonts-zh_TW ucd-snmp ucd-snmp-utils units unix2dos up2date up2date-gnome urw-fonts usbview usermode util-linux vixie-cron vnc vnc-server w3c-libwww wget which whois wine wl words xawtv xchat xcin xdelta xemacs xemacs-el xemacs-info xinitrc xmms xmms-gnome xpdf xsane yp-tools ypbind ypserv zip
The following packages will be REPLACED:
Mesa (by XFree86-libs) Mesa-devel (by XFree86-devel) XFree86-KOI8-R (by fonts-KOI8-R) XFree86-KOI8-R-75dpi-fonts (by fonts-KOI8-R-75dpi) XFree86-jpfonts (by fonts-ja) docbook-dtd30-sgml (by docbook-dtds) docbook-dtd31-sgml (by docbook-dtds) docbook-dtd40-sgml (by docbook-dtds) docbook-dtd41-sgml (by docbook-dtds) emacs-X11 (by emacs) emacs-nox (by emacs) im (by mew-common) kdegraphics (by libkscan) kdelibs-sound (by kdelibs, arts) kdelibs-sound-devel (by arts-devel) kdemultimedia (by noatun, kdemultimedia-libs, kdemultimedia-arts) kdenetwork (by lisa) kdesdk (by kdesdk-kspy) kdeutils (by ktimer) lclint (by splint) links (by elinks) sgml-tools (by linuxdoc-tools) vorbis (by vorbis-tools)
The following packages will be REMOVED:
opera
The following NEW packages will be installed:
Distutils Glide3 XFree86-base-fonts XFree86-font-utils arts-devel atk cdparanoia-libs cups-libs db3x docbook-dtds elinks fonts-KOI8-R fonts-KOI8-R-75dpi fonts-ja glib2 gnome-mime-data gtk2 hesiod hwdata intltool kdemultimedia-arts kdemultimedia-libs kdesdk-kspy ktimer libgal19 libglade2 libid3tag libkscan libmad libusb libvorbis10rc3 linuxdoc-tools lisa mew-common noatun openmotif pango postgresql-libs pygtk2 pygtk2-libglade python-clap python2 qt2 splint usbutils usermode-gtk vorbis-tools wl-common xml-common
560 packages upgraded, 49 newly installed, 23 replaced, 1 removed and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 711MB of archives.
After unpacking 92.2MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

OK, that's just silly. Wonder how long this will take to run...

If I had any musical talent whatsoever, I'd probably try to play music like The Black Keys. Two white guys from Cleveland. And they rock. I'm doing some work-stuff, listening to 'thickfreakness' and just digging the hell out of them. In fact, I'll throw them the virtual goat: \../,

Go and give their stuff a listen.

It's crunchy.

It's no secret that the Japanese people, when taken as a whole, can be slightly odd. That might be understating it a little. Sometimes the entire damn island looks to be completely off their nut. But I could be wrong. I've yet to go there, so I can only paraphrase them sociologically, as with any culture one comes across mostly anecdotally.

You say to yourself, "I might only be looking at Japan through the lens of the Internet, and that might distort the picture a bit. I'm sure they're just like you or me, with few minor little differences here and there." Then you see something normal, everyday and benign, such as an advertisement for soy sauce which leads you to believe that the entirety of the Japanese people are, in fact, from space.

Trey, no stranger to the strange (or the Japanese), sent me the above Flash movie. He even got me to install Flash in order to see it. "It's worth it," he said. Boy, is it ever. Jumpin' Jesus on a bento box, it's friggin' weird. And it's for kids! This is an advertisement to get kids to use soy over other condiments. And watch the white cat! Now you're eating your soy sauce, aren't you? It's like the Brothers Grimm were born in the anime age. And were Japanese. And drug abusers. And from space.

Kikkoman's the cigarette-smoking superhero who can beat up ketchup and maybe salt. He needs a Shaft-esque theme song even. "Who's the number 1 motocycle-riding soy sauce superhero who's a hit with all the chicks? Kikkoman! Right on..."

Watch it a couple times. I really want a t-shirt with Kikkoman riding the "#1 Soy Sauce" motocycle. Or a shirt with the white cat. Or one of Kikkoman getting a little horizontal soy-based refreshment.

Did you ever click on a link and even before the page loads, you have a certain sense of "impending uncleanliness" dread? Ever wish you could selectively remove memories?

In the truest spirit of sharing and amity, present to you Pedal Pumper38's Male Pedal Pumping Site.

Well this is just great news. The FBI knows that I went through Las Vegas over Christmas. Can't be too careful. Them pesky holiday travelers might do any number of things. Best to keep tabs on us -- just in case. I'm sure any sane judge would agree. Oh, wait. No judge need be consulted anymore. How con-veeeen-yent...

I wonder if they've correlated my past travel data with my book-buying habits or grocery purchases at Von's. Makes me want to fly to Mexico, buy a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook online, and then order all the normal household chemicals needed to make a stupidly ineffectual bomb. But then (secretly!), I'd throw that dumbass book away, plant chiles, fertilize my garden and clean my windows with the stuff instead -- just to stick it to The Man. Maybe then I might even -- gasp -- buy an almanac afterwards. Yeah, that would show 'em!

It's like Ashcroft's taking pages out of the Geheime Staatspolizei playbook or something...

You'd think Microsoft would at least try to make just this one page render properly in browsers other than IE. If just one page on their site had to look good on a non-Microsoft platform it should be that one, right?

You'd think so. But that would probably make far too much sense.

I just got done from a long day (two weeks, it seems) of working on a side project, and thought I'd finish the glass of wine that had been neglected since dinner 7 hours ago. While clicking around, I came across the venerable Meyers-Briggs Personality Test. I had to take that one again. My mom has always been a nut for pop psychology stuff, and I'd taken the MBTI test once before. I wondered if I've changed much in the last 22 years. Here's my score:

INTJ
Introverted ??? Intuitive ??? Thinking ??? Judging
Strength of the preferences %
100 ?????? 33 ?????? 56 ?????? 67

You are:
very expressed introvert
moderately expressed intuitive personality
moderately expressed thinking personality
distinctively expressed judging personality

Sounds nice and nebulous -- and exactly what I was when I first took the test.

They provide links to some analyses for the INTJ type. I didn't mind the touchy-feely one so much (I'm in there with Dan Akroyd and Donald Rumsfeld, after all), but the other one sounded pretty harsh. The last paragraph is dead-on, but they label they give that personality type annoys me. It does make it easy to see why nobody wants to play Scrabble with me. It can drag on there towards the end...

If you have the time, go take the test (it's a really short version) and lemme know what you are. Now, bedtime.