So You Think You Can DJ - Track 2

From Brother Dan I got two new sets of slip mats for my turntables. I was in desperate need of new ones because the current pair were leaving marks on my records. So once I got home I of course had to try them out. The new slip mats have less friction the my old ones so that’s going to take some getting used to. But with the great vinyl transfer of 09 I now have all my vinyl correctly coded with an accurate BMP. This is what I’ve been missing all this time. I was rocking records back and forth with the greatest of ease. My gosh I’ve never had this much fun with my turntables. I also started using the faders (volume levels) to mix the records and keep the cross fader at center. This helped me keep thing organized in the headphones. I only stopped because I had to walk the dog and go to bed. If this is a sign of times to come, I can’t wait for my SL3. Oh, and because of my mom and grandma, I’m $540 closer.

So You Think You Can DJ? – Track 1

The Past:

I’ve always been fascinated with DJ’s for as long as I can remember. Well, I guess it can be traced back to 1991 or so when I first heard some techno that really grabbed me. I was at favorite store; Junk Yard. It was like if Hot Topic was cool, and had crushed cars in the store and chain link fencing on the walls. They were playing The Lords of Acid’s - Voo-Doo U. It was a few years later that I bout my first Technique 1200 and a mixer. Not sure what I was mixing with just one turntable. Oh right, I had the plan to get a second one, which I did a little while later. Over the next few years I started building my record collection.

Unfortunately I’ve never had a good job; or real good access to a record shop so I have a pitiful collection. And I was never very smart about my music choices. I have about 5 records of each genre. Some drum-n-bass, hardcore, trance, acid trance, dance and some other just weird stuff. I tired mixing them together but just couldn’t get it together. I did manager to pull out one hour long mix that sounds pretty good for the first 20 minutes, then I start to loose it with the rest of the set. If you really want to hear it, let me know and I’ll up load it. Years past and I sort of lost touch with my equipment, only playing with the records when I got really board and wanted to frustrate myself.

The Now:

Thanks to the power of Facebook I was able to reconnect with an old friend of mine. And get this, he’s a DJ. And an even bigger get this, he credits me for getting him into techno back in the day; thus spawning his love for music and DJ’ing. Those were some good days too. Staying up late and listening to DJ JT on Rev.105 FM and Big Daddy Greg Comstock on 93X FM.

Anyway, I’ve been picking his brain about his work and have gone to a couple of his shows and now I’ve got the love again.

I have no clue how this slipped past me, but he, and a million other DJ’s are spinning mp3’s instead of real vinyl. This is so my thing. I have so many mp3’s that I’ve all ready got a good start. But not many of them are DJ mp3’s, with nice long intros and outros for mixing. So at this moment I’m starting to save money so I can start buy DJ mp3’s. And better yet, this will be current music. The last time I bought a record was about five years ago or so. By mid January I’ll have enough money to buy the hardware necessary to connect my laptop to my turntables.

The Future:

My goal is to really get myself into DJ’ing. This will be the easy part. The hard part will to book one show. That is my goal. In one year, I want to book one show. I know I’ll be the opening and playing for a room of about 10 people while the rest of the people trickle in waiting for the next DJ or the headliner to start. And that’s fine. This is my I-don’t-want-to-go-through-life-wishing-I-had-done-something resolution.

I’ll try to throw up updates as I gain my new music, equipment and any other “ground breaking” events I encounter.

From the easy grind to the boring.

So today is my last day with the Guest Data Security team at Target. I joined them on a temporary assignment back in March of 2009. It was hush hush type of work. But I can tell you I was working to keep you, the Target consumer and your data with us safe from the bad guys. It was a nice change of pace for me and the four other co-workers who joined me. We all came from Guest Relations and were used to a very strict schedule. All breaks are decided for you, you have to get your vacation time approved at least a week in advance and you’re tied to your desk when not on breaks because your job is to answer phone calls. With Guest Data Security it’s a very relaxed environment. Come and go as you please, break whenever. Need some vacation time? Just tell your boss and it’s done. Get the work done, and you’re free to be you. I’m happy that my first day back in Guest Relations will be next Monday. Meaning I miss out on working Black Friday, my first in six years.

While I was with the GDS team, my desk has been move in GR. I’m not happy about this. The people I’ll be sitting next to are nice, but they all feel that I care about their problems and that I’m their free tech support. I don’t mind helping, but it’s the same problem over and over again. And since I’m about 50 years ahead of them when it comes to using all the available benefits of a computer, they’ll be looking over my shoulder asking about the various tools I have and wanting me to explain how they work. I’ll have to keep my Twitter app secret because that’s not a conversation I want to get into. These are the type of people that buy a computer so they can forward email and play Solitaire. Sorry, didn’t mean to get on a rant about that, but it’s coming, I know it.

The work I do in GR isn’t hard, just boring. I’ve been at it for just over six years now so I’ve pretty much mastered all the skills I need to work the job in my sleep. Answer the phone, resolve the issue. Not hard stuff. Once and a while you get what I call “The Principles.” These are the people who will argue over $.50 (that really happened too). It’s not about the money, it’s the principle. Ugh, shoot me now.

I hear there’s a small, small change that I might be able to go back to GDS and finish up the work I was doing. I’m not going back to GR because I was done, but because it’s the holidays and GR needs everybody than can get to work. This will be an untrue statement, much like it has been in other years. When I first started this time of years was b-u-s-y and it was really fun. But as the department grew in size, and shoppers started spending less, the holiday season and just been a bore. They will be sending people home early and calls volume will be low.

 

On a nothing related note, I’m going with my brother to a big DJ bash tonight. 20 performers on three stages. Going to see my friend DJ Blaze One rock some dub step. I hope it’s dub step, a new genre that I’ve only heard about until recently when I saw him spin a few weeks back. Hot shit I tell ya.

 

Well, it’s near 8:00a and I guess I should get to it.

 

And crap crap blogger.com is acting a fool with craptastic IE6. I’m just going to email this post in a not give a damn about the formatting.

 

I recorded records.

Wow, it's been a while since I thought I had something to say. And it will be much longer too because I never have much to say about anything. I finished up my record recording project. I took about 50 of my best trance, acid trace, house, drum-n-bass, dance and hardcore records and transferred them to my computer. The Process: 1. Played the record and used the simple sound recorder app on my Linux machine. 2. As that was recording, I was taking photos of each side of the record so I could pair them up later to the finished .mp3. I never used my cell phone camera so much. 3. Also, while the record was recording I was transferring the raw audio from the Linux machine to my Windows laptop. Once it was transferred I loaded it up in my audio editor to remove the level check and the little clicks where I was dropping the needle. I had to do the Linux to Windows transfer because my laptop does not have the correct sound card for quality recording. 4. Once I had all the photos cropped, and the audio trimmed I loaded the .mp3's into my tag editor. From there I could get all the ID3's created and attach the photos to each song. 5. When all the tags were correct, I uniformly renamed all the files to match the record as best possible. Artist - Side. As in Busta Rhymes - A. I don't care about the name of the song, just what side of the record I was listening to. I did this so I could listen to my records on my iPod. I want to know these records like I know most songs on my computer. I've been trying to play DJ for years but was always getting frustrated because I could never get the mix right. Mainly because I didn't know the song well enough. And if all things work in my favor, I won't need the records anymore. I'm looking into buying hardware that will allow me to control my .mp3's using my turntables. (Let it be known I still hate the WYSIWYG editor for blogger)

Flash!

One of my Twitter pals posted an old Flash animation she did. That got me to thinking, I had some too. It's been so long since I even thought about them. And with this being the age of the internet, and sharing if just as common as breathing, I thought I should share as well. You can thank @AimeesBlog for the awesomeness you're about to witness. Oh, and @HMorgen, she was a big part of the art back in the day; when she was still my girlfriend. Expect an edit to this post when she reads this and tells me we were already married or something.

http://bit.ly/superflash

Get it away from my face!

This is an idea, theroy maybe that I've had for a while. H suggested I blog about it; because it'd been super funny. O.k....here goes, funny.

Something I've realized over my 30 years of life is that my face will tell me just how gross something is, or how much something hurts.

You step in dog poo, it's gross, but you can handle it. Get it on your arm and it's still gross, but you want it off fast. Now, the poo is on your chin, you're probably gagging a little and running to the nearest source of water you can find. Then you can start answering the questions about why you have poo on your chin.

Or, maybe you just smashed your foot in the front door. That sucks, right? You deal with it and go about your day. Smash you hand? Hurts, and you start doing that funny jazz hands thing to yourself; because jazz hands have the magical power to heal ya know. Now, you smash you face in the door and you're screaming like a jerk and maybe crying a little. Again, you'll get to field questions from the gallery about why your face was in the door to begin with.

They are many other scenario's that I can't think of right now because I'm pressuring myself to do so, but you get my point.

1 2 1 2 this is just a test...and some other stuff

I'm really just writing this to see what happens. I just found on Facebook that I can import stories from other website that I use. O.k....I get that I can import my blog posts, but I can import my Picasa and Pandora stories? So I write 90% of my blog posts in Google Docs, I can then push it to my blog directly from Google Docs. So, I'm seeing just how it looks and works with Facebook. I'm then going to upload a photo or two to my Picasa album and see just what the hell Pandora will do.

Something you may not know about me...I love booty bass. The dirty sounds from dirty south. Dj Smurf, 69 Boyz, Hi-Town DJ's and so forth.

Saved By The Bell: Live blogging 8-22

Home for Christmas: Part 2. The gang help out the homeless family; and put on a play that closely resembles A Christmas Carol.

The kids Christmas play in the center of the mall, nothing but a shameless plug for Moody's Store For Men.

Nice. Episode two. "The Baby Sitters." Kelly has to watch her baby brother durnig the school day because the parents are snowed in at their ski lodge. Kelly has her cheerleading photo's today, so she enlisted the help of the others. Get ready for some crazy madcap antics here. Benny Hill style if I remember correctly.

Slater is once again wearing those hideous jeans that he sports so often.

Do they really expect us to believe that Zack has a baby in a gym bag?

Just spotted one of my favorite extras. Ponytail Meathead.

Word up! Ed Alonzo is here as the school photographer.

Can you believe that! Deadbeat Slater just ran out on Zack and the baby in the boys locker room. Joke's on him, Zack is using Slaters shirt to wrap up his baby junk.

The girls are in home-eck now and also have the baby. You can just see where this is going. And it's not going to be pretty.

Oh no! Screech tried to retrieve the baby from the girls, but took one of the dolls instead. Never seen that one coming. Now I know this is gonig to sound a bit "it's a show stupid" but wouldn't one know the feeling of a baby compared to a doll. And back from commercial beak, Lisa asks the same questions. I feel validated. That's the right word right? Whateve, don't care.

Geez, Zack is sure getting heated over a lost baby. Calm down freak.

Oh no again! Kelly is here and looking for the baby (Billy I guess his name is). Antics a-commin'! Complete with sped up film, zany piano music, and the gang going into locker A, and coming out in locker B. 

Billy is crying from beyond! They killed him! Oh wait, he's just chilln' with Mr. Belding and playing with the intercom.

Oh this is just awesome. You know I love to comment on Slaters "fashion." Right now he's got the same hideous jeans and rocking this pink/peach sleeveless tee-shirt. Tucked into the jeans of course.

I can just barely see the bottom of a school-made banner, just the bottom half. "See Nancy, Nature Club!" I'm joining. 

Fuck, I can't stand the "baby says first word" thing shows like to do. True to form, the first word is something the baby has only heard about five times today; Zack.

O.k....show's over. I normal person would sit here for another 20 minutes offering up thoughts and ideas about what they just watched. Not me. 

Saved By The Bell: Live blogging 8-15

Looks like it's a very Christmas episode of Saved By The Bell.

Holy gross. Slater is shopping from Screech's closet. He's wearing this ugly brown with light brown print silk shirt, with bright red cords or denim, I couldn't tell.

Slater is only making $4.00/hour working as a gift wrapper. Weak. I guess the recession went back further than we all thought.

Ooooh! It's the one where the kids befriend this homeless guy and give him and his hot (by Zack's standards) daughter a better Christmas.

It's weird knowing that I've seen Screech's male member. And using in way his mother would not approve of.

Ha! Some tiny punk just told Jessie she was an ugly old bag. Another cast member making money using her goods.

...sorry, that's it. Being told I have to run to Target to pick up some items and breakfast and McDonald's. I hope to get all 60 minutes in next weekend.

Not really a real post, sorry.

Not really a post, just trying out this new share feature from Google Reader. But I really would like this.

Hibernate: "

Sleep at your 'dog house'! Called Hibernate, by Aimee Pegram. 'Sometimes we all just want to get aw..(more...)

"

Jessie's on the pill again.

So I think found my new best friend on Twitter this weekend, and it all started with Saved By The Bell. Jen Bun from Twitter and The Good, the Bad and the Lovely blog fame caught on to my tweets about the show (I was sort of live tweeting it...now just like Ogre would say "Nerrrrrd!") and we started @ing back and forth about it. It was the best of times I tell ya. I'm looking forward to maybe being up at that time next week and live tweeting it again. I am a huge SBTB fan, I have the entire golden era on DVD. By golden era, I mean the proper show. Not the weird elementary school season, even though it did star Hayley Mills as their teacher. Or those God awful college years, starring that C-list celeb from The King of Queens.

Anyways, I was up early on Saturday and noticed that SBTB was on. It's been a long time since I watched that show on a Saturday morning, and it felt good. And it was on of my all time favorite episodes; the one where Jessie becomes addicted to pills! Oh No! This episode has everything. Jessie getting hooked on drugs, her and the other girls starting the singing group Hot Sundaes, Zack as a band manager, and Screech infiltrating the girls locker room. I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so... SCARED! What I wasn't so excited about was the thunderstorm that rolled in and knocked out my satellite signal before the big performance at The Max.

So, the point I'm failing to make is to virtually hang out with the Jen, you'll be a better person for it.

GTA + Doom = Love

Both me and my brother love the game Doom. Hell, we were rocking Wolfenstein before there even was a Doom. We also loved Grand Theft Auto. Again, before the fancy GTA that most games know and love, we were rockin it old skool. Of course we're both lovers of the new style too. So I had this great idea. Put the two best games out there together. A dollar to the developer who gets it done, and done right.

Here's the email exchange, hashing out all of the critical details.

Me: Know what would be fun? Doom in the GTA environment or GTA in the Doom World.

Brother Dan: Doom in the GTA environment would be best. of regular gta but with doom enemies. cruising down streets in a fast car dodging pinkies that have the mass of cars themselves, flying the choppers while cacodemons hurl fireballs at you from around skyscrapers and lost souls constantly buzz you. I think it would be freaky cool to be speeding in a car, hit look back and see flaming skulls screaming and chasing you.

Me: Damn, you make it sound really fun. When I wrote that I was half falling asleep and really didn't think it through. Picture me and you, both flying around in Annihilators battling a Cyberdemon. Or better yet, Doom in the GTA: San Andreas so we have the fighter gets. Just streaking in formation laughing missiles are them. NRG-900 and using the 2x barrel shotgun from TLAD taking down Imps in Star Junction. I'm quitting my job, you're stopping school. We're going to make this.

Brother Dan: From the makers of Transcontinental RV Derby Across America comes the latest in genre-splicing entertainment: Grand Theft DOOM-O

Me: Love it. I need more magnet balls. I'm going to form a DOOM-O figure for our big release.

Brother Dan: I think the box art should be a side view of you in your slightly beat up muscle car cruising down the evening downtown street, flaming wrecks and bodies motion blurred in the background, and you're leaning out your busted window pointing your uzi behind you at the lost soul screaming and chasing you, flame from its head trailing long behind it. and the missions in the game could be survivalist groups and military outposts recruiting you to clean up areas, retrieve "prisoners" or technology from the enemies, find a new place to make camp or reconnect with another outpost, stuff like that

Me: Wow, if I had better photoshop skills I would so make that happen. And if I had any game making skills, I would so make that happen. And if I had better writing skills I would so make it happen that I would use the same phrase three times in my email.

The monsters would need the ability to damage objects. Cars of course, but also buildings and such. And be a bit smarter than they were in Doom.

Brother Dan: I think the enemies would deff be able to damage cars. the ones that don't shoot things would hit it like physical, like running into another car, or like when you hit a car with a bat. and fireballs would hit like small explosions, or set the car on fire. and of course cyberdemons launching actual rockets at you. arch viles scorching the street when they do that lightning thing. everything would be on fire if you stay in one place long enough. like a slow but persistant cop chase all the time.

Me: I'm totally playing it my head right now. And those stupid zombie humans walking around with their shot guns...or the chain gun fucker just jumping around a corner with the gun instantly trained on you. But no problem, you have an AK that can care of him. I think we still need the foul mouthed peds for easy killings and random chatter.

Brother Dan: yeah, those shotgun zombies, you're speeding away and then bam bam you got blasted with a couple shots near point blank as you fly by them and now your car is smoking, damnit

The 70's Tweet

This has been bothering me. Don’t know why, don’t care.

I was watch That 70’s Show a few days ago and Kelso mentions that he once tied a hamster to a balloon with a note on it. “It made it all the way to Minnesota” he says. That is my issue. The shows takes place in Wisconsin; and in my 30 years of living in Minnesota I’ve never heard of a weather event coming in from Wisconsin. It’s always a cold front coming down from Canada, or a blizzard from the Dakotas. Meaning; the weather around here, and most places I assume, works its self west to east. So I don’t see how this ballooned hamster made it to Minnesota.

Isn’t that just the dumbest things to bitch about? Well I don’t care. Suck it.

This post also starts what I hope to be a lame way to have some fun with Twitter. Every time I post here, I send an update via Twitter just so my followers know there is another pot of gold waiting to be read. But now I’m going to start @ing it to a random celeb to see if it gets picked up at all. I got this idea back when all the Michael Jackson stuff was going on. Ryan Seacrest posted a link, but he didn’t use a URL shortening service so it was too long for the tweet. I found what he was trying to link to and tinyurl’d it and RT’d it to him. He then reposted the link, but never gave me the credit or mention for doing so. Bastard. It’s cool, I still love the guy. I just wish I would have used bit.ly so I could see the stats for it.

Today it’s going out to @aplusk because of the Kelso thing.

Ryan makes long post with long link

http://twitter.com/RyanSeacrest/status/2505483755

I correct it

http://twitter.com/supertoyz/status/2506175871

He reposts with MY short link

http://twitter.com/RyanSeacrest/status/2506220905

I’m also just going to email this to Blogger, I still hate their WYSIWYG editor. Hope it looks right when it gets there.

Damn you Google!

Google Chrome OS comming soon

I say damn you with much love for Google. I mean, I use Google for everything at home (my employer has yet to see the light). Gmail, Reader, Maps, Earth, search...I even write most of my blog posts with GoogleDocs (as I am right now). Oh, and my blog is hosted on Blogger; a Google owned site. I even dropped FireFox for Chrome. That was hard, but I'm a full Chrome believer now. I know there are some more Google apps I use, but just can't think of them.

Anyways...Google announced last night that there is a new project in the words. Google Chrome OS. It's first going to be for net-books. But as far as I can tell, they will be going after full desk-top systems too. That means my little ol laptop would be included. And get this ...

    "The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel." - Google Blog

That's awesome. Google + Linux = I want it. But this is the suck ass part. I just pre-ordered my copy of Windows 7. I guess the only thing keeping me calm about this is that I know it'll be a while before the Google Chrome OS will be available for a system such as mine. It's nothing fancy, but it's not a net-book.

4th of July - The most original title.

I never know how to start these things. It was a dark and stormy night... This post is really about me wanting to play with Google Maps and see if I get myself to embed the map without much hassle.


View July 4th in a larger map

The start of my day wasn't much to crow about. Oh, speaking of crowing, my wife selected her next two tattoos. Both including crows. Anyway. I got us Subway, putted around at home for while and continued to refine my ID3 tags in iTunes. With 12,038 files, and adding more almost weekly, it's a never ending task.


Later on H started to text back and forth with her brother to arrange what they called: Operation Brother Drop. He can't drive yet, so their father had to drop him from their middle of nowhere camp site. The park your trailer/camper and leave it year round kind, not tent. So it was set. Grab the brother and give him a good fourth of July. He was having no fun with the camping. I've been up there before, bore fest I tell ya.


On the way home H had the great idea to hit Culvers. We go there so little and it's a shame. We love the place, and we live really close, and we drive by it at least once a week. We eat there and I completely stuff myself. I'm even told by H and a complete stranger to have the root beer. Weird. We head home where we wait for the sky to darken. Our cue to head out to see the fireworks.


Now the fun begins. We make our way to Target to use their parking lot. I know that you can't park there unless you're shopping. But what are they going to do with every car in the area parking in their lot. Nothing, that's a what. We make our way to the soccer fields that Blaine uses for the big ass soccer tournaments every year. Right as we get situated, H start to not feel good. 30 minutes until the show starts. I race my way back to Target to get a bottle of water so she can take her medicine.


From our location I could see two other firework shows. The real fireworks (the show I went there for) was pretty cool. Sort of lackluster finale though. Overheard some fella say it's because of the recession. Not sure if I buy that, but I don't have a better answer.


Now here comes the grand exit. A couple thousand cars all trying to use the same three two-lane streets to get to the highway. And it's barely a highway. 4 lanes, but stoplights every 1/4 mile. Local Minnesotans of the north metro know my pain of highway 65. It took us about 35 minutes to travel 1.3 miles. Not cool. For most of the trip I had my eyes glued to the gas gauge. It was on E when I got to the lot to begin the night. And I knew all this time idling in traffic would be an adventure in its self. I should have turned towards the highway the first chance I had, but no. It was just a tiny bit backed up so I decided to keep going straight; thinking it would get better the further away from the event I was. Booooo me. That would have saved me big time I think. I heard plenty of booming cars with rap, 80's and country music. Somebody trying to direct traffic from their own idling car. Another person throwing out those tiny snap firecrackers out of their car window. We got hit with a sprinkler thru our open windows. We first thought it was some ass hitting us with a super soaker or something. I round the corner and can finally see the intersection. Yes! We’re going to make it. Just as we cross the low fuel light turns on. Even though we were 10 feet from the gas station, that light still panicked me for a second.


We make it home fine and vow that we are not doing this again next year. I suggest we just take bikes. Or we could just walk. It’s not that far away. I’m quickly shot down. So, I had a good fourth. I’ve missed out on the last few for just this reason. The hassle of coming and going to such an event.


Holy crap. Would you look at that? I didn’t expect to be so long winded. But it is what it is right? If you don’t like it, copy and paste it into notepad and edit away. Delete all together if you want. Whatever. And after proofing it, I realize it's a shit written tale too.

Stupid new computer issue.

This is just copied and pasted from one of the four boards I posted this issue to. Sorry if it reads funny.

I bought a new HP desktop about two weeks back. It came with a 640g hard drive but I needed my 500g from the old computer as well. Both are Western Digital SATA 3G 7200 rpm drives. The computer seems to run fine, until I start using the 500 drive. It will work fine for about 30 minutes, then everything will either come to a crawl, or just freeze. The only thing I have found to cure the freeze is to close explorer, and start it up again. After I do that, the drive (and most other things) is pretty much useless until I restart the computer. I’ve even tried to move everything from the 500 to the 640 while I try and trouble shoot, but even that is impossible.
And just a though, the 600 (the Windows installed drive) drive is plugged into SATA1 on the MB, DVD drive on SATA2, and 500 on SATA3. Any chance that makes a difference?

CPU: 2.2GHz AMD Phenom™ X4
RAM: 6GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM
Graphic: NVIDIA GeForce 9100
HDD: Western Digital 640GB SATA 3G 7200 rpm
HDD: Western Digital 500GB SATA 3G 7200 rpm
MB: Pegatron M2N78-LA
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit

It a bagman, in trees.

I was bored, so this is what happened.

Computers and Money - An update to some posts...and some new stuf

New stuff --

 

After month’s and month’s of talking about it, it’s finally done. The HMorgen shop (NSFW by the way) is up and running. I guess it’s more of a place to buy some of her prints. A shop seems more like a place with many different items. That may come in the future, but we’re going to see just how well the prints sell first. This is a blatant, not-so-subtle hint to go buy something from her. The main delay was I had no idea how to set up an online store. Then I got wind of this magic payment processing site called PayPal. They made it too easy. After setting up my account and figuring out the little quirks, I was able to make an add to cart button, add the code to my page, congratulate myself, done. I think that’s a weird sounds and structured sentence. I don’t care, I keeping it. So, go check it out if you’re into creatively done nudes, horror, or just good old erotic photo’s. Plus, she a female photographer, so you know it’s not all gross and creepy.

 

Updates --

 

After the computer meltdown about a month ago, H broke down and let me get her a new computer. She was a bit apprehensive at first, because she didn’t feel she needed one. But I couldn’t stand watching her try and edit, and falling asleep at the desk while she waited for Photoshop to catch up. She also couldn’t play her new The Sims 3 game because our system was not up to speed. Plus, something went wonky when I tried to repair the computer after the crash. As I mentioned, none of the Microsoft items installed. But other little things, like you couldn’t drag n’ drop items anymore. So now we got a beast of a system, compared to our old 6+ year machine. A nice quote from yesterday “Whoa, it deleted them all already?” I was happy at that statement. I was afraid that she would start using the new computer and not notice a difference.

 

Did I tell you we got our $800 back? We haven’t heard anything from the police about it. I guess I could have H contact them, but I don’t see that happening. The bank says that after 90 days they don’t find that it was fraud, they’ll take the money back. I don’t see that happening though. This couldn’t have been any clearer case of fraud in our eyes.

 

Afterthoughts -- 

 

And thanks to @sandentotten for mentioning my blog to me in a tweet. It was just enough of a push to get me back to writing it. I sort have forgotten about it. Mostly because I don’t even find most of what I have to say interesting, so it’s hard to put it our there for others.

 

And here’s something else weird. I hate Blogger.com’s WYSIWYG editor so much that I’m writing this entry, as I do most, in an email at work, to be sent to myself, to be redrafted in GoogleDocs and posted from there later this evening. It’s 2:50p CT right now. Let’s see when I really post this. 6:35p.

A man, a pizza and a bus on the news.

I was coming up from the first floor of my apartment building with some finished laundry and I noticed a guy sitting on the outside steps. He was just sitting there with a pizza box (and I assume a pizza inside) and a 20oz of Hawaiian Punch. Once I made it up to my place I could see him from my window and he was just sitting there, eating away. Then I noticed a bike (a bike, not motorcycle) parked on the street, just like you would a car or whatever. I had nothing better to do so I just watched. Pizza man finishes up, hops on the bike and takes off. Now, I’ve never seen this guy before so my deduction is that he was hungry, needed an address and chose the first building he saw. I guess pizza joints don't deliver if your address is the bike parked on Main St. Weird stuff.


Also, I may have made it on the local morning news. The WCCO morning news is set up much like NBC’s Today show, where there newscasters sit in front of a window and you can see the city happening behind them. There is a ton (yes, 2,000 pounds worth) of road construction going on in Minneapolis so my bus had to detour. It just happen to do it on the street that passes by the news window. My luck they were on a commercial break.

I want my money man!

If you haven't gathered from my Twitter posts, or you just don't follow me, let me explain a bit more in detail for you here in 2,298 characters. Some fuck face stole our money. Over $800 worth.

H just finished shooting a local punk band and was leaving the parking ramp. She was paying with her bank card but the diy machine wasn't working. The shifty clerk said that he could do it for her. She gave her card to fuck face and he ran it through. H and her passenger both noticed he was a bit shocked when she asked for her receipt. He gave it to them and they were on their way.

About 5 o’clock that evening, she got a call from Visa, telling her that there has been some suspicious activity on her card and would like to go over the pas transactions with her. Most of them, we not hers.

Fuck face (or his fuck associates) did this:
Shoe store $350+
Gas station $100.00
Another gas station $100.00
Back to the shoe store $250+

Fuck face (or his fuck associates) also went to McDonalds and a grocery store, but by that time the card had been shut down. And we can only assume that the $100.00 from the gas stations are phone cards, something of that sort. Or the fucker drives a Hummer.

So what I thought was going to be a nice lazy, video game Sunday, quickly changed to a fix this problem Sunday. We went to the bank, and told them about the situation. They were quite helpful and really knew what they were doing. That unfortunately means this happens all to often to other folks. They closed our account, and opened up a new one for us. Their fraud investigations team is also looking into this so they can return that $800+ back to us. In the meantime, my mother gave us $300 to repay some bills that were scheduled to be paid online on Monday. So far, every other company that we had to deal with has been pretty willing to help. Waving late fees and stuff like that.

Yesterday H filed a police report. Police person said that because she filed, the bank almost has to waive all fees, and pay us back the missing $800+. At least, that's what I hope I heard. If the police can find this guy, she is most defiantly going to press charges. She's going to get all Michael Douglas on this fuck face.

Today is better. Our new account seems to be fully active now, so bills can start getting paid again.

Computer woes Sunday

So yesterday something just less than drastic happened. From what I can tell, the Windows boot file was somehow corrupted beyond repair. That is, if I could have repaired it. Since the boot file was corrupt, I couldn't even get into Window. The computer would just keep restarting during the boot screen. It did that for about 40 minutes; that's when I decided that I needed to do something, and it wasn't going to be pretty.

I researched as much as I could, and all signs pointed to a reinstallition of Windows. Crud. I didn't really mind this option at the time, because last time it just reinstalled Windows. All the other stuff was saved. My Doc, installed programs and settings. All the good stuff. This time, it reformatted the whole drive. Super fuck. There was only a couple of things I would have wanted to save. The entire HMorgen.net website was on that drive, the settings for the templates we use to build the site and the photo gallery part of it and the many Photoshop settings she uses for her work. Many of witch would have been really hard to reproduce. You know once you get used to something, you tend to stay with it, and forget how you got it. By some miracle, each one was backup or recoverable in one way or another. This was a big bonus. H was in tears when she thought we have lost everything.

But as I type, she is over on her reformatted computer editing photos from this past weekend. As I can tell, it's back to normal. Well, almost. It seems sort of slow. And none of the Microsoft items installed. The Office 2003 trial, MSN, Outlook...things like that. Doesn't bother us too much though. Other than Windows, we don't really use any other Microsoft products.

Imaging Weekend - 1

I'm starting something new for myself, and anybody else out there who cares to watch. It's what I call Imaging Weekend. I'm going to produce a new piece each weekend and post it here, and on Facebook. I'm not expecting much of a reaction, but it's something fun for me to do. I also hope it's going to push me to learn some new techniques.

First up is: The Lonely Devil.

Let's start out with my inspiration. You'll find this theme in much of my work, because there was none. I was creating this sitting on my couch, so I didn't have my mouse with me. I kept things simple. I realize this looks like a South Park character, but I can assure you that it was not my intention. Just happened.

The entire collection

Facebook Dance

Yeah, go head and tell me a better song that Safety Dance from Men with Hats. You can't! It's an impossible challenge. Well, this might do it.

This week in supertoyz history: I joined Facebook. Well, let's be real here. I joined sometime last year; but just to view somebody else's profile. Logging a total of 15 minutes prior to this weeks revival of my account. I didn't know that almost everybody on my fathers side also has a Facebook account. Guess I was late to the party. I'm still having a time trying to manage what info I want to send via Twitter, and what I should send via Facebook. I guess that's only for me to figure out.

Later today...later as in right after I post this. I'm going to teach my brother how to use Google Reader. I'm always asking him about this comic we both enjoy but he response is always the same. Oh, I forgot to check it. He then tells me that he has about seven other comics he reads but they all update at different time so he's always missing them. Is this not a call for help? Reader to the rescue! His excuse so far is that he doesn't know how to work all that stuff. I think I have about 70 or so feeds in my reader, so I think I'm qualified to show him.

I think that's all I have for today. Cookies for breakfast. Good day.

This is a good afternoon

I was going to try and tweet this, but I though it might get too long. Let me list what I have and why it's making for a good day.

My laptop. I've only had it for a couple of weeks now, but I still love not having to fight with my wife to use a computer. She spends a lot of time editing photo's, or posting new photo's to her various forums, or researching new models. Pretty much it's her photo machine. Now that I have my own computer I can do what I want. I'm still debating if I want to try and set-up an dual boot drive so I can install Linux. But I probably never will because I know what will happen. I'll get Linux set up, think I'm cool, then never really use it.

My puppy, because she's awesome. Well, she's really with me because H (the wife) is shooting today and Daphne (the puppy) is being a pain. But with me, she just curls up with me, and find a spot on the floor. Nothing special there, just regular old dog stuff ya know?

Awesome Goa mix. DJ Shoom & Mixtress Bloodwing - Herbal Remedies with Guest Deadly Groove (March 2008) to be exact. Really can't explain it, but it's good shit. Streaming it through my Xbox while I'm playing GTA4.

My Xbox, playing GTA4. Really, for the reasons above, just reversed.

Bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Grape. I love the way it tugs at the hinges of your jaw when you take the first sip...so good! It's what I live for in a juice. A good red pasta sauce will do it to me too.

And to top it all off, H just told me that she'll be going out with the models to get some foods, and bringing me back some McDonald's.

This seems like one of those blog posts that people always make fun of when you tell them that you blog, or tweet for that matter. Here's what I'm doing, because you care kinds of things.

Well, that's it. Add all those up to make a great supertoyzian afternoon. bye bye!

post script: still can't figure out how to add tags to my post when publishing through Google Docs. Any help folks?

Hodgepodge

So my morning routine changed a few weeks ago. Not for the better or for the worse, but for the Top 40. I sit in my room, eating my breakfast, reading the morning Google Reader, happy with my thoughts. Then, at 5:15a the alarm goes off for my wife to wake up. She has it set to 101.3 KDWB. The stupid Top 40 station in our area. Top 40, who am I kidding, Only 40. This brings me to the song I heard this morning; Lady Gaga (I can barely even type that out, I hate her so much, what a stupid name). The track was Just Dance. The song is just your typical dance song meant to be played a million times on the radio, at clubs and where ever else they can pimp it out. The thing I really hate about it is that I feel there should be more words to it. As if she found this neat backing music but just couldn’t write anything good enough to sing about. So she just went with the overly typical “dance” lyrics. It’s like a pop singers easy button. Or a one answer Magic 8 ball. “Dear Magic 8 ball, I what should I sing about, what do you suggest?” Shaky shaky shaky….Dance. And the fucking chorus…do do do do just dance. Really? Maybe Pierre (sorry about the sideways camera, best version I could find) could have filled in for her, at least it would have been interesting. The rasta-rapping is the only good part about it, mainly because the lyrics take up the full space of the music. For me, she’s like my perpetual hate machine. I hate her, and really for no good reason, and that makes me hate her even more…and so on and so forth. She seems like that type of person who would name their child something really stupid, like Safety pin, or Light bulb.


Things have been going great for me at work. I have this strong feeling that I won’t be returning to the call center after my six month project (well, now five). I’ve been working with some folks who should be able to get me into something much more suited to my skill set. I mean, the two managers took me in their office and for 30 minutes just praised my good work and told me how much they want to help me advance. That’s good right? Something where I don’t have to repeat our company’s various policies to upset, confused, or just plain old pissed off people who call up because they have nothing better to do with their time. Something where I can take my brain off auto-pilot and use it for some good. More on that as it develops.

I continue to find the lady who sits behind me a tool. Case in point: I asked her to minimize a window on her computer so I could see what was going on with a process. She asked me how do I do that. What, really? Other than using a keyboard, that’s like the most basic thing you learn when you’re first learning how to use a computer. I don’t know how she’s gone this long, she’s been in her current role for a few years now, and must use a computer all day to complete her job functions. She just blows me away. Oh, and this had happened more than once.

I’m finding myself with much less concern to who I reach out to on Twitter. I used to have the feeling, much like I did in my school years, that I shouldn’t talk to people who I don’t all ready know. But now, I’m much more “fuck that, I’ll do what I want” because if they don’t reply, so what. I’ll most likely forget I even said anything around the same time the person contacted did. All though, I do have to give a shout out to my two Twitter rocks: Aimee and Cassi I know they’ll respond to a tweet of mine, and I don’t even have to ask! That of course is excluding family.

The lady who sits behind me just showed up for work. Glorious.

O.k….done.

Why am I so special?

First: A question to any other bloggers out there. Do you generally have your whole post written in your head before you even sit down to write it? I do.


Anyways, I went to try the new soda machine they have where I work. This here is a mini story in it’s self. When it comes to new technologies or new fancy ways of doing things, I’m the first to try it out. But for some reason, I’ve held off on this one. Probably for this reason here. I went to try it, slid my card though, and the machine couldn’t communicate with the host; try again later. Fuck you soda machine. I’m heading down to the café where if they can’t get the card reader to work, the most likely will give it to you for free, or just ask you to come back and pay later, while letting you keep your item. O.k….I’m off track…get back on it I say…

I head down to the café, get my Coke, and wait in line. I catch the tail end of the conversation between the patron in front of me, and the check-out fella, named Brian.

Brian: “get used to this face, you’ll be seeing it all week.”
Customer: what happened to the regular check out girl?
Brian: “Let’s say it was self induced“

Then it’s my turn to pay (and get this, the card reader works just fine. Again I say fuck you soda machine.)

Me: “Self induced huh? Sounds interesting.”
Brian: “Well, I just didn’t want to say she was suspended”


So I asked myself, why would he tell me this, and not the other guy? I mean, I am a regular down at the café, but do you really want to go around telling people that your co-worker was suspended? I guess if you really don’t like them, then yeah. I thought I had some more self reflection here, but I guess not.

Oh, and my morning has just went from I’m happy to be at work, to I want the lady behind me to shut-up forever. I realize that both of those statuses can co-exist, but just roll with me on this one. It’s a down grade to my morning.

I just thought of something.

So, I have a blog. You didn't know? Oh, it's because I haven't updated the thing for a while. Oh, I just found out that I can totally skip the stupid Blogger WYSIWYG editor. This, is a major bonus for me. I seem to spend more time making it look right than I do writing this damn thing.

So, where was I? You know, I don't think I really had a thought when I started this. Well, the only real news I have is that I have a new temporary job. Same company, I'm just on special assignment to another department for a few months. After week one, it's great. It's all about data security. Best thing, I'm not confined to the scheduling rules of a call center anymore. I set my own hours, lunch and breaks. It's so weird having that freedom after five years in the call center. And I'm going to try my damnedest to impress the pants off the managers so maybe I can be brought on as a permanent employee. So far, so good. I've been the go-to guy to create the process and show it to the other members of the project, and the managers seem to come only to me to help with the next move and such. Feeling pretty good about that. Hope I can keep it up.

In other peoples news, H has posted many new photo's and two new videos. I just finished putting up her latest video that she shot this weekend; A friendly glass of wine.

Oh, and one last thing...my new favorite show...

The Flight of the Conchords. I realize that I'm probably a little late to the party, but I don't care, it's tons-o-fun.

Until...well, until.

hummm...still can't figure out how to tag my post from Google Docs...oh well, not that big of a deal.

I hate 10

Wow, it's been some time now since I've done any blogging. I usually do this in the morning hours at work, and I write it in an email so it looks like I'm doing real work if the boss shows up. Using Google Docs for this home entry. But they've been pimping out my team to other departments for the past few weeks so I've been without the time. So, this entry will contain some info that's a bit old, but if I hadn't said anything, you'd be none the wiser.

So, this is the straw that broke the bus's back. It was five-thirty-one A M this past Monday. I was in my car with my wife waiting for the bus to come. That right there was odd. The bus I take (the 10, from Northtown) is usually there when I get there. It hangs around until five-thirty-nine and then it's off to downtown Minneapolis. So, the bus didn't get there until five-thirty-eight. A rider got off the bus (odd, I've never seen anybody get off at that time) and he was just laughing. Great, a weird-o, just laughing. Then I realize why, the bus driver is not my usual fella. He's one of those drivers that wears the captains hats with a bunch of gold pins on it. I know these types. They think they are the God of bus drivers. Always with this stupid shit-eating grin (I love that phrase, like they really eat shit, and smile about it) and just giddy about the world. He also sat really high in his seat too, like he was above everything. Jerk. O.k....whatever right. I start to doze off almost immediately. I wake up to find were still bumming around Northtown. It's like this shit-eater though idle was the way to get places. I knew right then I was going to miss my connection in Minneapolis. And guess what, I got there just in time to watch my connection drive off. This means I'll be 30 minutes late to work. I won't lose my job over it, but you know, still not cool. This seems to happen at least once every two weeks. This prompts me to look for another route to take. Good move. I find a route that near guarantees me to catch my connection with time to spare. Best part, it's in a ramp! Indoor freaking ramp that's nice and heated, keeps me out of the snow and rain...life it good. With that, I decide to find another route home. I get home 15 minutes faster now, and it forces me to walk five blocks. We're a go for exercise!

I'm done typing now. I don't have proper typing techniques so my hands are starting to hurt. I'm going to watch my DVR'd Survivor, Catch the rest of the Wild game. They just scored! M. Bergeron on the power play. It's what he does best. I'm watching the game summary from their site so I'm not sure, but I can bet it was a wicked slap shot from the top of the circle. O.k...I'm off to watch, and get sick from Hawaiian Punch and crackers. Wife is off on a photo shoot in St. Paul, so night to myself. Yes! Writing this while rocking to the Dead Kennedys. 

LET'S LYNCH THE LANDLORD MAN!! Ok....this time, I'm done.

The Oscars, and one loser.

So those Oscars were on again last night. I normally don’t watch them because I don’t watch enough movies to really know what’s good or not. And I don’t really follow the hype either. This year was a little different. I’ve been listening to and reading a lot more entertainment podcasts and blogs lately so I kind of had an idea of what was out there. Still didn’t make me want to watch most of the movies though. So, I decided to watch the last half hour and catch the really big awards. Silly me, to trust that there really was 30 minutes left according to the on screen menu. This brings me to the second reason why I don’t watch the Oscars. I always get this feeling that I will never have the recognition doing such great things. It just depresses me. But as I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep, I got to thinking. Why am I looking up to these people in such a way? I mean really, these people are just actors. They are not in any way the people they are playing on screen. So they can cry on cue. They can portray another person well enough for you to think it’s all true. Good for them. But when the cameras are off, they are just normal folk like you and I.

Hulu.com

I tend to think I'm pretty smart when it comes to things with the internet, but I'm just not getting this one.

If it's too small for you, click this.

I opened up Google Reader at 4:47p (box 1).

Looks like the post was posted at 4:02p (box 2).

Somehow my Hulu show was added to my queue at 8:21p (box 3).

Unless the Hulu servers are in another time zone, but I still don't understand how it was be almost 30 minutes off.

Any thoughts gang?

Things I'm doing right now:

Doing: typing up my blog and checking Twitter

Foods: Just finished up my Jimmy Johns sandwich.

Drinks: My Coke is now empty, I think I might have another.

Ears: Listening to Nightwish. I just can't get engouht of this group, and the symphonic metal genre in general.

Feeling guilty: Because I want to eat the cocolate I got for H for V-day. I won't though, I got myself some Oreo's. But, I have to pace myself.

Will be doing in five minutes: Making a cheesey V-day card for H, then off to watch 30 Rock from Netflix and work my puzzle.

Side note, I really hate drafting my posts in Blogger's WYSIWYG editor.