Chuggnutt!

Month: January 2004

  • Speeding

    My wife sent this story to me today, from the eBay forums. I thought it was pretty good.

    An old lady gets pulled over for speeding…

    Old Lady: Is there a problem, Officer?

    Officer: Ma’am, you were speeding.

    Old Lady: Oh, I see.

    Officer: Can I see your license please?

    Old Lady: I’d give it to you but I don’t have one.

    Officer: Don’t have one?

    Old Lady: Lost it, 4 years ago for drunk driving.

    Officer: I see … Can I see your vehicle registration papers, please?

    Old Lady: I can’t do that.

    Officer: Why not?

    Old Lady: I stole this car.

    Officer: Stole it?

    Old Lady: Yes, and I killed and hacked up the owner.

    Officer: You what?

    Old Lady: His body parts are in plastic bags in the trunk if you want to see.

    The Officer looks at the woman and slowly backs away to his car and calls for back up.

    Within minutes 5 police cars circle the car.

    A senior officer slowly approaches the car, clasping his
    half drawn gun.

    Officer 2: Ma’am, could you step out of your vehicle please!

    The woman steps out of her vehicle.

    Old Lady: Is there a problem sir?

    Officer 2: One of my officers told me that you have stolen this car and murdered the owner.

    Old Lady: Murdered the owner?

    Officer 2: Yes, could you please open the trunk of your car, please.

    The woman opens the trunk, revealing nothing but an empty trunk.

    Officer 2: Is this your car, ma’am?

    Old Lady: Yes, here are the registration papers.

    The officer is quite stunned.

    Officer 2: One of my officers claims that you do not have a driving license.

    The woman digs into her handbag and pulls out a clutch purse and hands it to the officer.

    The officer examines the license. He looks quite puzzled.

    Officer 2: Thank you ma’am, one of my officers told me you didn’t have a license, that you stole this car, and that you murdered and hacked up the owner.

    Old Lady: Bet the lying bastard told you I was speeding, too.

  • Technology Predictors

    Tim Bray is running some good articles on his blog on predicting the success or failure of new technologies. Good stuff. You can find the articles here; the series is still ongoing.

  • The Story of America

    Does this seem counterintuitive? I’m currently reading The Story of America, by Hendrik van Loon, published in 1927. First edition, too, I think. Why? Because I wanted to get a perspective on American history from nearly 80 years ago. This was a time when the booming Roaring Twenties were in full swing, before the Great Depression and World War II, when there was only one “Great War” and there were still people alive that had lived through the Civil War.

    This wasn’t a planned excursion, mind you; I’d had this book on my shelf for quite awhile (I probably picked it up at a garage sale or a thrift store for cheap) and picked it up when I was looking for something to read.

    On the whole, though, it’s an interesting and engaging read. Being written in 1927, it’s still under copyright for a few more years, but I’ve noticed that Hendrik van Loon’s earlier book The Story of Mankind (1921) is available on Gutenberg. Perhaps I’ll convert it to a Palm ebook.

  • Homes

    Since it’s all official, I guess I’d better blog it: We’re buying a new house! (Insert fanfare sound effects here.)

    Not just any old house, either, but one that we’re buying through the company I’m working for, Pennbrook Homes (so essentially I’m getting even more into bed with my employer, yeah yeah…). Pennbrook builds homes in the area and we’re choosing one in the Terrango Glen development up in northeast Bend; we’ll be moving across town. Of course, in order to make this work, we need to sell our current home, so the last couple of weeks we’ve been focused on cleaning, decluttering and packing up half of what we own to make our place presentable. (Yeah, that’s the sucky part.)

    As an aside, anyone looking to move to beautiful Bend, Oregon? We can set you up with a killer house on a large lot in southeast Bend in a great, quiet neighborhood. Great location!

    Heh. Anyway. I’m debating whether I want to blog the home buying and selling process extensively, similar to what Jeremy Zawodny is doing, but I doubt I’ll write much. We already know what we’re buying and what customizations we get to pick out, so the big question mark here is selling our place. Perhaps I’ll write up some tips to selling a home as we go.

    Tip #1: Get a realtor! A good one—ask around. The money you would otherwise save is much better spent on someone with the knowledge and expertise that you don’t have to sell a home.

  • Just Another Friday Night

    Long week, and this turned into a pointless post. Interesting. I’ve got some ideas for articles to write, but they all take more energy than I have this Friday night.

    So, a pointless post that’s cluttering up the aggregators and the search engines. Hm. There’s a kernel of an idea in there somewhere.

  • CafePress.com

    Started playing around with CafePress.com at work today (setting up a basic store for the company), and I’m fairly impressed with it. I’ve been toying with the idea for a while now of setting myself up with an account and opening a chuggnutt.com store (and play around with others); now I see how things operate, I think I’ll do just that. Stay tuned.

  • PHP: Best of Breed

    I’ve been meaning to write this article for a while now, mainly to point to some really good PHP applications and spread some kudos.

    There are many good applications and classes out there, but I’m limiting to those that I’ve had hands-on experience with. Even so, this is hardly a comprehensive list; I may do some follow-up articles highlighting more good PHP. (more…)

  • Best of 2003

    As promised, here’s some of my own “Best Of” lists for 2003. All of these are my opinion only.

    Best Comic Books

    • Smax. This limited series isn’t quite done yet, but it’s some of the best and most fun Alan Moore stuff since Top 10 and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
    • Thor: Vikings. This really freaked me out, but I have to admit, it was really well done, even if it’s wack.
    • JLA/Avengers. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but Kurt Busiek and George Perez have done fantastic work here.
    • Groovitude: A Get Fuzzy Treasury. Not a comic book per se, but it fits here. It’s great.

    Interestingly, I can only really remember anything a few months back for the good comics list. That’s kind of dumb.

    Best Movies I Saw

    This is kinda sad, showing you my movie preferences. I guess the best way to comment on this is to say I prefer escapist movies to more “realistic” ones.

    Best Stories I Blogged About

    Most Overrated Technologies

    • OPML. I don’t know what it is about OPML, but I just can’t get into it like I got into RSS.
    • Friendster. Slow, and I have trouble seeing the point.
    • TrackBack

  • NetOffice Fix

    This is a follow-up to last month’s post about NetOffice. I’ve gotten several emails from people wanting to know specifically what I changed to fix the session error I was running into.

    First of all, these fixes apply to version 2.5.3 of NetOffice only. Other versions, you’re on your own.

    In the file includes/library.php:

    Comment out line 23: ini_set('session.save_handler', 'user');
    Comment out lines 61-63: session_set_save_handler() stuff
    Comment out line 1088, in _sess_mysql_read() function: _sess_mysql_destroy($session_id);
    …and add this line instead: session_destroy();

    This all kills the custom session handling, instead letting PHP use the default (temp files).

    In the file general/login.php:

    Comment out line 37: _sess_mysql_destroy($session_id);
    …and add this line instead: session_destroy();

    In the file projects_site/index.php:

    Comment out line 22: _sess_mysql_destroy($session_id);
    …and add this line instead: session_destroy();

    After that, you should be able to get things working.

  • The Governator Ale

    Governator Ale labelFrom this press release on MacTarnahan’s Brewing’s website (MacTarnahan’s and Portland Brewing are the same company):

    Thirty-five million Californians are getting their first taste of The Governator—a new beer commemorating the Golden State’s 38th governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Brewed and bottled by Pumping Iron Brewing Company [a DBA for MacTarnahan’s], The Governator Ale comes in a strapping, 22-ounce bottle adorned with a flexing beau, paying homage to the Austrian-born bodybuilder-turned-actor-turned-governor.

    It’s an ESB (Extra Special Bitter), and doesn’t sound bad. Anyone in California kind enough to send me a bottle or two? :-) (Unless, of course, I can find it here…)

    I also notice that the domain name pumpingironbrewing.com is available for registration.