Monthly Archives: September 2005

Downfall. Vanhood Redefined.

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I get into my car.. still unbelieving. I turn the key. I notice that the mileage reads “14,666” miles. The radio starts kicks in. I have a CD playing; my favorite CD. The first words I hear from the singers angelic mouth: “Fate… is so unkind”. I near weeping as I finally have a moment to reflect on the night’s terrible events.

Fate… is so unkind indeed. Vanhood as vans know it changed forever last evening. Vanlandw, Vanbergs, and myself, congregated for what can only be described as pure, un-adulterated, sheer vanhood. What might this be? Well, the answer is “Knockout Matches”. Wrestlemania 2000 for the nintendo 64. Hours of painstaking work creating personalized characters. Personalized moves. A vallant 3-way battle where the victor cannot be decided by “pin” or by “disqualification”… Not even by submission of the opponent. The winner is declared only when an opponent is knocked unconcious. It is an epic battle, with alliances and betrayal and whole drama. A poem of heroism. A story of defiance. A war with three parties and no sides.

When these wars take place… battle after battle after battle ensues… to the tune of at least 10 rematches. This night, there was no count. The knights of vanhood rematched and rematched for 5 hours… Finally, in the early morning hours… We decided on one final match. The match was epic. Temporary alliances… swinging of chairs and lumber… running power punches… Tiger suplexes… “near” knockouts where a foe managed to pick up the fallen…

Finally… vanlandw had been hurt, i stand him up to execute a powerful full nelson suplex, a knockout move… Just as he begins standing, i notice vanbergs is already running right for vanlandw and i know i have made a grave error. Vanbergs unleashes unfathomable fury straight into the back of vanlandws head via the undescribable “running power punch”. Vanlandw crumbles.

Vanbergs instantly grapples my character.. strategically preventing me from helping vanlandw get up. After a brief time of struggling to get to his feet, vanlandw’s character subsides… Gives up on the match, the war, vanhood, and his life. The bell rings.

After some shouting, name calling, alliance forming, alliance betraying, we decide… “1 more match.” But wait… we notice our characters dont look right… our characters look plain… whats happening… Reset it! 3 way match… no belts… oh no… characters… empty… gone… vanhood redefined.

Years of vanhood washed away… 1 cartridge battery dies… destroying years of customized player honed ultimate glory.

Knockout matches are no more… no more forever.

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Using Ubuntu

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For some time now I have been a ‘computer guy’… Being said computer guy, I have always been curious about trying new things, customizing old things, just breaking things, fixing things, redoing things, you get the point. Part of that curiosity has been trying out alternative operating systems. “Windows” and I always seem to have a love/hate relationship… I leave it for brief periods of time to explore(mainly, i explore the ways that an end user can customize any part of a linux distribution… it actually is somewhat overwhelming), but in the end always return back to my trusty “Win XP”. With my current exploration, however, I may try to make a permanent switch. My most recent exploration is ubuntu linux.

I used this operating system a few months back, but only briefly… I’m going to force myself to give it a good run, and only boot windows if I must, or if i feel like playing counter strike. Now on my 3rd day of ubuntu, i really have no complaints. One of the things i first noticed is that it seems the gap between windows and linux is definitely shrinking. Alot of programs i would use on a daily basis in windows are installed by default on linux; firefox, thunderbird, gaim, the gimp, just to name a few. With OpenOffice 2, i really dont see how I should need to use Windows except to play counter strike… My daily regiment of internet/email/chatting is set up EXACTLY like it would be on a windows system… Another big plus with ubuntu, it is the first distribution i have used that comes with synaptic/apt installed and ready to go. I’ve always had to set that up and configure it manually on a redhat/fedora install.

Long story short, I really like Ubuntu. As far as linux goes, its an easy to use, very functional distribution. Check out some screenshots.

I really wonder if linux will ever get to be a mainstream OS for consumers…
it seems that Macs are doing a great job of bridging the gap(perhaps due to
the sound coat tails of the Ipod)… Really, the masses don’t care what’s on
their computer, they just buy it from a reseller and then use it when they get
home. So really it will probably take a PC manufacturer to standardize a
linux distro and begin shipping their PC’s with linux pre-loaded. The fact
that Novell has purchased SuSE linux is huge… absolutely monumental.
Hospitals, Universities, probably the federal government, all the large firms
have implemented Novell. Why? Well, these large firms needed a robust and
functionally sound network infrastructure very early on in network computing,
when there wasn’t an alternative like Active Directory. Novell is going
linux, hence offering an imaged linux client, hence novell networks will
probably start veering towards linux (or, migrate to Active Directory). If
people use it at work, they will become familiar with it and feel comfortable
using it at home. I think its happening… slowly but surely.

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Holy update.

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Probably the biggest update i’ll ever write. To assist, a bulleted list of
topics.

  • 1. I am engaged
  • 2. Gamgee count
  • 3. People are idiots – Hurricane Katrina
  • 4. Best dream ever
  • 5. Misc / vacation

    • 1. Well, this week was a pretty monumental week for myself, as i am now
    officially engaged to be married. Instead of boring myself and everyone else
    with ‘how’ i popped the question, i’d like to reflect on the whole situation.
    I’ve been in a relationship for a really long time… By all accounts we’re
    pretty much married already. We live together, pay bills together, etc. Now
    it’s just a more accurate title. I couldn’t really be any happier, even
    though it was unexpectedly difficult to “pop the question”. The actual
    wedding is going to be sometime next summer/fall ish… My bachelor party is
    definitely going to involve knockout matches in some capacity.

    2. I have absolutely stolen the EXACT CODE from vanlandw.com’s
    bauercount to make a much more informative, stimulating, and all around better
    “Gamgeecount”. The spawning of this creation is the creative idea of myself,
    and my brother McManus. Basically, vanbergs and I were disgusted at the fact
    that “Rudy Gamgee” is going to be in season 5 of 24. We view it as almost
    certain demise of the series. vanlandw,
    on the other hand, seems to really like Rudy Gamgee, and is looking forward to
    him joining the cast. Clearly, the brothers McManus were not going to let
    such treacherous comments be tolerated without some consequence. As such, i
    have dedicated “gamgeecount” as a
    site purely dedicated to making fun of vanlandw.

    3. Perhaps the worst natural disaster that this country has ever seen
    has happened, hurricane Katrina. In the wake of this disaster, i genuinely
    think i hate the human race. Love, compassion, heroism; these human traits do
    not hold a candle to the disgusting things that we are capable of doing. I’m
    jumping ahead… This storm was a category 5 hurricane with sustained winds
    of 175 miles an hour. There was a MANDATORY evacuation of the city of New
    Orleans. Obviously, i am do not carry a genius level intellect. But, there
    is no way in absolute fire breathing hell that i would have been in that city
    when hurricane Katrina made landfall. People had all kinds of notice. Why
    would you even consider staying? That’s besides the point, people
    stayed, now they are swimming in the middle of the nation’s largest pond. So,
    then agencies from all walks of life are scrambling to help them get out of
    the city of New Orleans… How do people take to this assistance? They shoot
    at the choppers that are evacuating people, they loot for anything they can
    get, they shoot at doctors and patients being evacuated from hospitals…
    aboslutely the most hanus things i can even comprehend. Sure, not everybody
    is doing that, but the fact that even some of them can do something
    that terrible makes a part of me say “Leave them there, see how they fair
    without help”. … … … Maynard says it better than me.

    4. I recently had a dream that was straight out of 24… Even though
    in my dream i commit a murderous offense, it is set in fiction, so that makes
    it cool. In reality, i do not wish to do anything near what is described in
    this dream. Let me also preface this scripture by saying that “Jack Bauer
    murdered Nina Myers”.

    The dream begins with myself and vanbergs throwing a ‘party’ at our parents
    house in hart michigan. People are swimming, partying in general, a good time
    is had by all. However,
    we soon notice that the villainous mistress, none other than Nina Myers, is at
    our party!! Vanbergs and I keep giving each other looks to say “I cannot
    believe Nina is at our party!!” WE WERE SO ANGRY >:-0

    So, mystically vanbergs and I end up wielding two hand held firearms… We
    proceed to stalk up our stairs, into my old bedroom, where Nina Myers is
    sleeping on a couch. We stand side by side, brothers mcmanus, and proceed to
    discharge our weapons in rapid succession; ultimately replicating Jack Bauers
    actions. We destroyed the greatest villain. We were brothers McManus. I
    woke up with a smile on my face.

    5. Vacation is just about half over for me… Alot of people find
    themselves still worrying about their jobs while they are on vacation, but i
    have a great ability to put it out of my mind. This vacation worked out well,
    as ‘my fiance’ also ended up with this week off because she is changing jobs.
    We went to a zoo, took a daytrip to saugatuck, got engaged, spent some quality
    time together without worrying about working. It has been pretty nice.

    Aside from that, i have been playing Grand theft auto, san andreas. This game
    is by far the best grand theft auto game to come out, and the Xbox version is
    absolutely awesome. It took me forever to get a copy, as it has been
    ultimately banned and pulled from every store’s shelves, but i did get a copy,
    and i am enjoying the game.

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