The Net Monkey

This is the worst halftime show ever!

I would love to know where this came from.

Seriously.

(Found via Greg.)

Title: "Hello" with Attitude

Uploaded By: mattbarton77

It’s been one of those weeks at work.

On Tuesday we struggled with a major outage resulting from power loss at one of our data centers, as well many other unrelated issues that managed to crop up during the day. I worked all day and into the evening, after eating some great Italian food with my friend Tom, but didn’t have everything fixed until Wednesday morning.

Speaking of work, I got a promotion today. I now have the title of Senior Systems Administrator, but won’t know about money until next week. I’m crossing my fingers.

I think its time to get out of here and go home!

I just finished watching my first on-demand movie on Netflix’s new video service. I watched Born Into Brothels, about children growing up in the red light district of Calcutta, India, which was one of many movies in my queue that was available for immediate viewing.

Some positives:

• After initially installing the software, watching a movie was very easy: just press play.
• The quality of the video was very decent.
• Seeing your used and available time per month is very easy. I still have 13 hours and 38 minutes of viewing time left until May 4.
• It’s a value-added feature, as part of your regular monthly subscription, so this doesn’t require any extra fees.

Some negatives:

• It only works on Internet Explorer on Windows. Firefox and Mac OS support are currently unavailable.
• The selection of available movies wasn’t all that impressive, but I imagine there will be more coming in the future. For now, I am happy with what they have available.
• The video quality may not be good enough for some people, depending on the screen you’re using to view content. I was satisfied using my laptop, but HD television viewers may not be as happy.

Overall, I am impressed! I am probably going to spend a lot of time watching movies this way, and I imagine I’ll find some films I hadn’t previously considered watching; it’s just too easy.

(The movie I watched, Born Into Brothels, was a very good documentary, by the way.)

I don’t like guns.

I don’t think people need them as much as they think they do.

And I think it should be very difficult to get them.

With that being said, I also don’t think that having stricter gun control laws would necessarily have made a difference in preventing Cho Seung-Hui from killing 30-some people at Virginia Tech on Monday. I’m sorry. I just don’t think that it would have stopped a deranged lunatic from getting a gun and shooting it at a bunch of people.

My point is that all of this rhetoric right now about changing the gun laws is nothing more than damage control. People are justifiably upset, and we all have an emotional need to explain what happened. People demand action and politicians make it a political issue, so it appears that someone is going to fix it.

If you want to take the overall issue we have with shootings in the USA in to scope, I would be inclined to agree that stricter gun control laws would have a measurable and provable impact over time, but I think we need to get off this notion that it is some kind of silver bullet.

Regardless of whether or not we have stricter gun laws in this country, someone will always be able to find a way to kill lots of people. There are plenty of alternatives for someone who is hell-bent on hurting and killing others.

I guess I’m a pragmatist about it. I believe that these things just happen. If history has taught us anything (for those that bother to understand it), bad things have always happened to people, and they will happen again.

As I’ve already said, there just isn’t a silver bullet solution here.

I would totally love to write up some cool review about Joost and what I think of it, but IT KEEPS CRASHING on me.

So, I guess I can’t.

I also received some invites today to give to friends. I would be happy to send one to anyone, but I have to be able to bring up the software first without having to reinstall every time I want to watch something.

Feel free to request an invite and I’ll send it to you, eventually, but I only received 3 of them so they’ll only go to the first 3 people who ask.

UPDATE: Invitations to Joost are claimed. Thanks!

How is everyone this weekend?

Yesterday I saw RHYTHMS at the Phoenix Theatre with Tony, Jason, and Adam. The performance was excellent, and I especially loved the storytelling style of the show. Unfortunately, it’s only here in Indianapolis this weekend, with the last performance starting in just a few hours. If this show comes to your town, I highly recommend seeing it.

After the show, Tony, Jason, and I went to the 501 for a while. Greg and Carlos showed up, as well as some other folks I haven’t seen in a long time (Doug, Eric, et al.). It was good seeing everyone.

Sometime after Tony and Jason went home, I went out with Greg and Carlos to Steak n’ Shake at 56th and Keystone. Mmm! Nothing like some heavy burger and fries action after a night of drinking.

I have a condo association meeting tonight. I think we’re going to discuss all of the plans for the retaining wall in the parking lot, as well as landscaping. I’m worried that we’re going to do a big assessment on ourselves to pay for the repair, but we relaly need it so I think we should just bite the bullet and do it. It’ll save us pain down the road.

Lastly, I’m becoming quite addicted to Twitter. If you’re impatient and have a short attention span (like me), you’ll enjoy it, too.

Here’s an except from an article entitled “Study: Abstinence classes don’t stop sex” by Kevin Freking of the Associated Press.

Students who took part in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.

Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes that were reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes. And they first had sex at about the same age as other students — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

Is anyone at all surprised? I’m not!

After selling my home in Fall Creek Place, I have every intention of returning to renting, at least for a while. Little did I know that it might actually make a lot of good financial sense.

According to an article from the New York Times, it is probably wiser to rent and put all of the extra costs of owning into other investments, at least in the current market climate.

Article: A Word of Advice During a Housing Slump: Rent

(Found via Consumerist.)

Title: Name That Expression

Uploaded By: mattbarton77

What am I thinking?

Feel free to post in the comments your answer.

Title: frozen fountain #4 (b&w)

Uploaded By: []Aaroneous Monk[]

Saw this on the way to the office this evening. Wish I had stopped and taken my own picture, but this will do.

Need to update on a few things.

A few weekends ago, I finally watched the John Waters film Pink Flamingos. I don’t know if I’ll ever watch it again, but now I can say that I’ve seen it.

I’m going to see Morrissey in May at the Murat. Looking forward to it, but I need to catch up on his solo work, as I mostly know him from The Smiths.

Work has been stressful for the last month, but things are letting up. I’ve had to deal with some big problems with some networking equipment for which I am responsible. Thankfully, the last issue is to be resolved tonight.

I’ve had a couple of showings on the condo in the last week. This is excellent. The people who came for the last showing have my place as their top choice, but they’re going to see some more places next week, so hopefully I’ll get an offer here soon. I’m crossing my fingers.

That’s all for now. Happy Easter!

I’m now on Twitter.

Link: Twitter Profile

I’ll be adding a sidebar widget here soon to integrate it into the blog.