260 New Pieces of Artwork

Sunday, November 16th, 2008 | Site Updates | 4 Comments

I was bored with the current art. So I spent a bit extra time collecting new artwork. Now I normally go and do a “new artwork week” and then I mix the old art with the new art but now I think I will leave this up until December since there is enough artwork to maintain the random without the 600 old pieces of art.

Now today I am also going through the old artwork and throwing it in a folder called “bored” so even when I mix the new artwork with the old stuff I will have cleaned out all the artwork I was bored of seeing. I mean I am not joking when I say there were 600 pieces of art on random, but if you visit the site every day like I do then you would know that it still likes to show you the same 40 pieces of art all the time for some crazy annoying reason.

I have seriously tried 3 different random scripts to fix this but there really is no such thing as a good random script. I need to write one myself that has some kind of memory so it knows how often it is spitting out the same artworks… Anyways that is for another day.

For now, if you don’t like the artwork that shows up click the artwork button to the upper left corner and change it. If your browser doesn’t load a new piece of artwork hold the shift key on the keyboard and click the browsers reload button. This will force it to reload my page without using the cached artwork.

Enjoy the new art ~ Soon it will be in a database and you can pick and chose only your favorite artists to show up.

Attacked By Terrorists

Saturday, November 15th, 2008 | Smartass | 2 Comments

I have had a popcorn husk stuck in my throat near my adam’s apple for over a day now. If it was a normal piece of popcorn it would have dislodged while I was sleeping, however It has hung on. I have tried all sorts of things to get this dislodged but have failed.

The only reason I can see that I would fail would be if the popcorn were deliberately put into my bag of popcorn as a new type of terrorism.

I mean think about it. It’s very distracting. You are trying to talk, or breath or read something and you have to fight to get your mind to keep focus since all it wants to do is think about the piece of popcorn constantly stabbing at your throat.

I for one think as one of Bush’s last acts as president he should send more troops to various locations that might contain weapons of mass distraction like this popcorn.

Biggest Douche In The Universe 2008

Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | Smartass | 3 Comments

South Park started an awards ceremony once where they gave John Edwards an award for Biggest Douche in the Universe. In keeping with the tradition today I was given a web address of somebody that I believe should win the award for 2008.

So today I nominate Gary Johnson of Phenomenon1111.com.

I would elaborate on the reasons why, however it will only take you 2 minutes to read his entire website.

iTunes Ate my ID3 Tags

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 | Bad Ideas, Life | 4 Comments

So I thought I would throw all of my music into iTunes now that my desktop computer is up.  I mean that way I can have it download more cover art and can have last.fm read my library from it.

Seemed like a good idea at the time. 

So it ends up in there and there is this new “album view” and I quickly notice an album the artist says “Amos, Tori”, and knowing that was not how it should be listed I right clicked on the album and chose “get info” which is where you go to update the ID3 tags on iTunes.  So I checked in the box for Artist and Album Artist and I typed Tori Amos instead of Amos, Tori.

I hit okay and went back to watching a video.  When I was done with my video I noticed that iTunes had finished “correcting my album”. 

Though now it seems that not just that album was “fixed” but ALL of my albums were “fixed”.  250+ gigs of mp3’s from my Everything Else folder (or 63,439 songs) all had their ID3 tags changed to say that they were by Tori Amos. 

I mean I didn’t think the album Abbey Road was by Tori Amos.  Grr…

There is no such thing as an “undo” for changing 63,000 songs.  So that means every single song in my entire library has bad ID3 tags. 

Oh, I can just hear my friend Josh laughing now…

How to fix this. 

Winamp has this “auto-tag” thing that actually works pretty well, but it’s not perfect.  To prevent it from getting totally confused I need to remove the artist from all of my mp3’s so it doesn’t first look for Tori Amos albums. 

So when it completes that I am going to throw ALL of my music into auto-tag. 

Now, this will actually kind of suck.  My music is VERY well.  I mean I am very anal about my filing system.  Artist\Year - Album\Track# Track Name.mp3

The ID3 tags are just as clean because of it.  When I put them into my Everything Else folder I go and make sure all the ID3 tags are nice and clean to match the filing system. 

So until an hour ago I had the world’s best sorted and cleanest music collection.  After auto-tag it’s really a total crapshot as to if it will even be picking the correct information.

Some of it will be correct, some of it will be wrong.

I guess I am glad this has happened in 2008 and not earlier because mass ID3 tagging didn’t have an even half-ass effective global database even a year ago.

Seriously as stupid as I feel for having done this, I looked through iTunes and in it’s default mode this is 100% for sure going to happen to other people.  Seems that every single file is checked in by default, only you can’t see that it’s checked in.  When you right click on one album it highlights JUST that one album.  So iTunes doesn’t care what is highlighted, only what is checked in, and as I said.  It doesn’t show you what is checked in under the default album view mode. 

I have never liked iTunes but this is a MAJOR design flaw.

BOOOOOO Apple. 

Über PC Named LSD

Friday, October 31st, 2008 | Insanely long, Rants | No Comments

I seemed to have a lot of technical ranting in here so I decided to break the post up by themes.  If you aren’t into the technical ranting or start to lose interest just skip to a different colored text. 

<ultimatepc>
Even before I got back from New Zealand I had started to purchase the pieces to build my ultimate home computer.  Believe it or not I am not a gamer, but I still needed to build a giant PC with the newest shiznit because I run so many things at once on my system.
</ultimatepc>

<boasting>
Right after I got back I went and ordered all the missing pieces for my computer.  Spending more money than I had because to me a computer IS my lifeblood.  I purchased 2 monitors (one 24″ and one 22″ that was also a HDTV) an insanely large computer case with water cooling. 

The rest of the computer was a QX9650 (quad core, extreme processor 3.0ghz per core that can be overclocked and has 12 megs of cache), 4 gigs of DDR3 1600, an Audigy X-FI sound card, Some fancy 802.11n Wireless card, a nice Radeon video card and 6 terabytes worth of hard drives (though I owned most of them already.
</boasting>

<technical rant>
Here’s the funny thing.  I fix computers for a living, tis all I do.  I am VERY good at it.  However when I built this and turned it on the first time It was working, however it started randomly resetting.  I surmised at that time that it was either the really expensive power supply or that it was not grounded properly.  The grounding being the more likely. 

<thanks>
Still, a HUGE thank you to my friend Kevin who helped me with this.  Because even though I had “tried everything”, I didn’t try everything twice… He also dealt with me bitching about how he was doing things and didn’t back down.
</thanks>

<name>
I needed a name for this computer but I had already named a different computer Evil.  I briefly thought of naming it “Woman” because it is awesome but has been a huge pain in the ass all at the same time.  I decided instead that I would get over the computer being a bitch and just name it LSD. 

Why?  Because it started as a bad trip but is now awesome.  I figure it’s “all tripped out”.
</name>

<XP-vs-Server2008>
In a side note, I have installed both XP Pro 32bit and the 64 bit Server 2008 (supposedly 12% faster than vista) on here and I have done my own comparison tests. 

By far the fastest computer I have ever used, though it seems sad that vista/s2008 both run slower for me.  I mean what a cruel joke for Microsoft to play.
</XP-vs-Server2008>

Lucid Dream: Being Hunted 4 My Brain?

Friday, October 31st, 2008 | GP, Life | 2 Comments

I suppose I should have written this dream down hours earlier than I did, but somehow it’s still fairly vivid in my mind half a day later.  That being said I thought it worth mentioning. 

Technically I had had absinthe last night… A new legal absinthe in America that is actually made in the proper way.  However, it was hours before I went to sleep so I doubt I can give it credit for the lucid dream.

In the dream I was taken to a place that was underground somewhere.  There was a forest outside and I could smell the sap.  There was a city very close to the forest however I could not identify it, except to say that the buildings were tall, and it was fairly run down.

There were many people who were there with me and I was there willingly and happily.  My understanding was that I was in a place where they were going to unlock the hidden potential of my mind.  After what seemed to be a quick check-up to see if I was healthy they took me to a crowded room with long tables and somebody walked with me to a table.

The person who was standing next to me quickly stepped back and said “whoa” and then told me that my aura was amazing.  I smiled and then he gave me instructions on what I was supposed to do and then he gave me a pill which I perceive to be a hallucinogen.  I sit down and am then given some kind of über-healthy food (which tasted really good).  I ate the food up fast though I had to pause for a couple seconds while the colors changed in front of me.

I was talking to one person at the table I was eating at.  I cannot recall all the details of what was said, but I know that when I finished my food and conversation I was supposed to take my tray back and then wait for my next step.  However I decided to walk outside of this room. 

Upon exiting the room I was above ground and was watching people who were on one of the next steps where they were being tested.  The instructors were wearing army style camouflage and giving strange tests.  The main test I saw involved a washing machine somehow and people pouring some blue liquid into a container that was on a scale and they had to pour an exact amount of liquid into it very fast without going over. 

I then heard some of the questions they were asking and I memorized the answers and went back inside.

I was immediately told that they were ready for me and I was sent into another underground room where I saw a woman and there was some spinning mirrors and I was supposed to spin them and in doing so I would choose my instructor.  I asked if I could just have her be my instructor and she smiled and said only if that’s where the mirrors stopped.  I told her that I clearly wanted her to be my instructor so I would make the mirrors stop spinning there.

That’s exactly what happened then.  So we are then somehow sitting in the back of a convertible car, on top of the back of the car like you would see in a parade, and driving down the ruined streets talking. 

Well mostly I think I was just flirting with her, though I can’t recall what was said now. 

Now I can’t remember the tests, or if I actually took the tests or if the woman just lied and said I did, but somehow I got a perfect score.  Well the woman makes a point to tell me to leave where I am ASAP and tells me no more and disappears. 

I then walk back to the area where people had been testing and eating and nobody is there.  Not a single person that I can see is there after a little bit of looking I decided to heed the woman’s advice and I took to leaving, which turned into escaping. 

More military people appeared in my mind though not in my visual perspective.  They were talking about me and reading a piece of paper that just had my social security number and the fact that I had gotten 6 out of 6 on the tests.  The people started to freak out that I got a perfect score and that the woman (they said her name but I don’t know if I ever caught it) had let me escape.

They all grabbed guns and various weapons and started frantically searching for me using ground troops, satellites and other various means.  I had seen these things in my mind so I knew I was being hunted and I was running really hard and trying to get lost in various run down buildings, outside of the satellite coverage. 

The military men started referring to me as some kind of rebel leader who must be killed, though they might have just been saying that to the grunts to try to get those people to kill me.  It was not clear exactly what they wanted me dead for.

I had just rounded a corner or some building that smelled like a gym locker when my phone rang with a text message and woke me up saying “Happy Halloween“.  

Grr, go to the bathroom, have some water then back to sleep, try to resume my dream. 

Not sure if my dream actually resumed but I managed to fall asleep again and I found myself in a solid black room talking to some decorated military man.  He appeared to be trying to help me in some way and just when I was about to figure that out…. my phone rang and said “Happy Halloween!“. 

So I got up, used the bathroom, drank some water, grumbled a bit and then tried to go back to sleep.  This time it wasn’t going to happen so I just got up hoping that I was not going to get caught, but not knowing what I who or what I was hiding from.

Now, this was a lucid dream.  VERY vivid, and even stranger is it all seemed to go in a specific order with events happening and me going through the events like normal life.  There was not much time where I was teleporting from place to place, which is what normally happens in my dreams, so I am very curious as to what this dream was trying to tell me. 

Secretly Punched in the Nose

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 | Life | No Comments

So my nose hurts today. I didn’t do anything last night that would cause my nose to hurt today, unless somewhere in the process of drinking last night I passed out and somebody punched me in the nose.

This is the current theory I am going on, since I have been drinking every night for awhile now. Not so much because I am trying to, but because I have been hanging out with a lot of different people and when I do that virtually all of those people tend to drink as a way to pass time.

Drank today too.. But that’s because it’s Tuesday and I go out to lunch with a friend for cheap hot wings and beer every Tuesday.

So now you know what I have been doing, so lets talk about what I haven’t been doing.

I haven’t been working. Not on PC Repair to get paid, and not on the website (to theoretically someday get paid).

No excuses, just been in my own little world digging music and thinking.

The results of this thinking and music listening have caused me to change my goals once again. I have decided to pay off all the debt I have amassed since getting back from New Zealand and work my ass off towards being able to go to Europe this summer.

I have friends in Prague that I would like to visit and after that I have decided that I would like to backpack my way to Sweden, passing through Germany, Poland, Norway etc..

Now to do this I am not a college kid with a trust fund, so I will need to amass a small fortune in the next 6 or 7 months to do this. However I have some ideas on how I might achieve this (anybody feel like buying a kidney?).

What will make this trip different than when I went to NZ is that I “moved” to NZ and took a bunch of stuff with me. This time I will be taking a backpack and just the essentials. That means I will be selling my projector and other junk (though I will keep my laptop so I can still work on the website), and I am also unsure of how long I will be staying at this point since it will be totally dependent on the way I finance the trip.

One of the ways I might pay for the trip would be to convince somebody to “invest” in my website. Then I could just pay to have some of the scripts made that I want, or hire people to update and maintain sections as these are things that take an insane amount of my time.

Will try to update blog more often. I have just been distracted for sept/oct (though I actually answered some ask-a-smartass questions).

Server Problems Compounded

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 | Site Updates | 1 Comment

So as if the site going down frequently hasn’t been enough, today the hard drive took a shit.

Site has been down virtually all day. Now the hard drive for my server has been replaced and the data for it cloned to a different server.

So that’s one less issue for site to have.

Lets hope site stops having meltdowns, so I can work on it and then get it to the point where a new, better server could be purchased.

README: Fixed Issues (sort of)

Saturday, October 11th, 2008 | Site Updates | No Comments

So for about 24 hours there has been a script that my friend so generously made for some beer (yeah, beer) that helps make sure my site can be loaded and my email can download. All it does is “restart apache” every time the load jacks up too high. Apache is the web server for those not in the know, and it’s what is causing all the issues.

You load the games page and each game you load will very briefly use 1 to 3 % of the CPU power of my server. Once the game is loaded it is no longer using any of the server CPU and is just using your CPU. However ever since the additional traffic came to the site from collegehumor.com, 80% of my traffic just plays games. So if 90 people decided to load a game at the same time, the server flips out because it is using too much processing power and it prevents anything from working. So when this happens the site becomes unreachable and those people not able to load their games probably still can’t load the games.

So now, when too many people are doing things at once the web server will go off for a couple seconds, which will prevent whatever they were trying to load from working, however in a couple seconds they would be able to load their game and new people will still be able to get to the site.

Okay, it is obvious this is just a “quick fix” and not a real solution. I’m sure nobody likes it when apache is restarting and they can’t load their game or change page. So my more permanent solutions will be:

1) Cut down the CPU load of my games page. Hopefully the new design will do this, though honestly I have no idea if it’s the java applet or the current design causing the extra processor load, so new design may not fix it. This however will need to come pretty soon in case it is the design and the way the games load.

2) My dedicated server only has one processor. Seems as my site is getting more popular it can’t handle the extra traffic with just one processor. So I need a more expensive dedicated server with 3 times the ram and 4 times the processor. Funny thing though. I lose money on the site as it is paying for my current server. Not enough to bother me, but enough to not be willing to pay for the new server myself.

So as soon as I get the new games page up I will be looking for a good deal on a new dedicated server (I’d like to stay with current company as they don’t bitch about my content at all) however I WILL NOT buy it until I can get at least 2 months worth of the cost of a fast new server in donations.

Site is expanding, and I have been spending too much time trying to fix the speed instead of making new content. Not to mention that I have been working on the site and not on my computer repair business so I am starting to go broke :(

Anybody have a good cloning device?

Site Running Badly

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | Life | 1 Comment

The site has been running like crap. The past few days it has been really hard to even get to the site, let alone stay on it.

This has been driving me nuts because I have had to spend all my time TRYING to fix the issues instead of expanding the content of the site. By this point I wanted to be done with the theater design and wanted to have a test version of the new games page up and running.

However when you can’t load the site you can’t work on it. I’m sure a lot of people are getting discouraged with using the site as well since it has been running so shitty recently.

I am new to server administration and the site is run on it’s own dedicated server. I have tried to ask other people for help to figure out the problems, but to this point nobody has been able to fix the issues.

My guess is that somebody is trying to do a denial of service attack to the site to try to ruin it or lower it’s ranking.

Anyways, it’s driving me nuts and I’m not writing blog posts, not updating the videos on the theater, not creating the new games page or music pages, not answering many questions, not putting up the new artwork I have been collecting etc..

So tonight I am bribing one of my friends with some quality beer in hopes that he will be able to find the problems. He is a server administrator for GoDaddy.

So hopefully by the end of the night the server issues will be fixed and the site will return to normal and I can go back to working on the sections and content.