May 8, 2008
ten (10) years of failure
today is the 10 year anniversary of failure.net. that's right, 10 years ago today i plopped down $70 for two years of ownership of the domain failure.net. it had never existed before. i didn't buy it from anyone. you see, the internet was still slightly fresh and somewhat untamed back then. even though i'd wanted my own domain for a while, ownership was more expensive (and less common) in those days, and i didn't have nearly as much expendable income. by the time i decided to do it, a number of other domains i was interested in were already gone. but i finally broke down and did it. and i was pretty happy with what i got. and it's been nothing but failure after stupendous failure since. makes a domain owner proud, it does.
Posted by TeRRY at 8:17 PM | comments (3)
May 7, 2008
the enemy within
Posted by TeRRY at 9:47 PM | comments (1)
May 4, 2008
"i feel great, inez." --dignan
on tuesday i took a day off from work and took a trip to austin to visit my brother and nephew. he took the month off to stay at home with his son, so he had a lot of time to fill. i decided to take my motorcycle since it'd get me ~40 mpg, as compared to around ~10 mpg in my car or pickup. (at $3/gal that's quite a bit.) it was the first longer trip i'd been on this season. as such, i made some good decisions and some poor ones. first, it was still kind of chilly. i made the good decision of wearing my leather jacket and taking my 8-bit flame beanie. but the first 2/3 of the trip up and the last 2/3 of the trip back was still a little nippy. in the poor category, i must have never used the googles i took on a long trip before -- they let way too much air in. my eyes were tearing up most of the ride. even more poorly, the googles are tinted and chromed and i forgot to take some clear googles for after dark. coming home at night, the combination of tinted googles and tearing up made my vision very poor -- when i could see, i was only seeing about 50 feet in front of me. fortunately nothing was in the road. :)
the visit was only for the day, and it ended up being kind of weird. miles (my nephew) is sort of fussy, plus my brother was running a fever, plus i fell asleep on the couch for about an hour and a half. but we did go to the alamo draft house and we ate and saw big man japan. it's a fake documentary about a guy that is one of the giant super-sized heroes that protects japan from giant monsters. he grows from normal size (just like his father, grandfather, etc.) by being electrocuted at a power station. but the problem is no one really likes the giant heroes any more, and he's pretty much the last one, and his life kind of sucks. the monsters he fought were weird and disturbing, but it was funny. the best part was the ending. although it seemed disjointed from the rest of the movie, it was a group of poor quality tv show costumed japanese superheroes beating the crap out of a guy dressed up in a monster outfit. i was crying i was laughing so hard. this will make sense to those of you who know i kind of have an irrational fascination with people fighting mascots or mascots fighting each other. oh man, the last 10 minutes or whatever were side-splitting because of that. i mean, it was seriously hilarious.
as we were walking out of alamo, i looked over at a display stand for the ironman movie coming out. they had a daniel johnston ironman drawing on a t-shirt. but then i noticed a black work shirt with the "s.h.i.e.l.d." logo real big on the back of it. holy. crap. that was it, i had to have that. for whatever reason, i became a fan of nick fury when i was a kid. i had one nova comic book that nick made an appearance in. and i think he may have shown up in a fantastic four comic book my brother and i had too. we didn't have many comic books. but for whatever reason, the eye-patched, cigar-smoking, gruff guy with grey hair on the sides was fascinating to me. when i got to college and first started using the net (bitnet/decnet, then internet) i quickly picked the handle of "nick fury, agent of s.h.i.e.l.d.". i dropped it probably 1992 or 1993, but it's my past.
(as an aside, this makes clarence's discussion of nick fury at the comic shop with alabama in true romance endear me even more to clarence and increase my identifying with him. as another aside, jack recently shot a wedding where the couple used music and themes from the movie for their wedding. that's pretty cool. as a further aside, the theme music for true romance -- the marimba piece -- was borrowed from badlands, which is a terrence malick film. you should check it out.)
one day last week (i don't recall which day) someone broke into the potts' house. it appears all they really took was an apple laptop and two laptop chargers that were near the place they came in. having been a victim of home theft, i'm aware of how much it sucks. so a couple of days ago the potts' got a new dog. he's a hound/shar pei mix. anyway, i'm going to sell them my old 12" ibook laptop.
wednesday i got talked to at work about the fact that i've been spending too much time away from my desk. which i didn't deny. but after a couple of hours stewing on it, it really started annoying me. i don't really like criticism, positive or negative, deserved or not. and i don't like negative attention either. plus the issue wasn't that they weren't happy with my work, or i wasn't getting enough done. so i started taking down the stuff in and around my cubicle that makes my space unique and my own. i continued doing it on thursday. my actions appear to be really scaring and/or freaking out a lot of people at work. i think a lot of them think i'm indicating that i'm leaving. but that wasn't really what it was about. in fact, on thursday i had to talk with three managers in my group. and on thursday and friday i probably had at least twelve to fifteen people ask me what was going on and what happened. some of them thought i was told to clean up my cube. i gave away a couple of computers that i had. i've cleaned/hidden probably 2/3 of the stuff that was on my desk, and i've removed at least 3/4 of the stuff that was "personalization" of my space. i told some people they wanted a corporate cog, so i was going underground. we'll see what happens i suppose.
friday evening was the geek gathering. we had it at the petrol station in the heights instead of the usual tropioca. turnout was pretty decent, but i got there an hour and a half or two late. some people were going to joystix from there, but i decided to bow out and head home.
last night i was hanging out at the potts. i started getting tired and decided i was going to go home. this was around 10pm, which is odd for me. but then brad texted me to see if i was riding. i hadn't gone riding with brad or others in several months, so i couldn't help myself. i went home and got my bike and met up with brad. we met at mcelroy's near my house, rode a bit, then hung out at the dark horse. i ended up not getting home until around 2:45am. so much for being tired.
last weekend i took my sha-sha blue flame leather shoes (the ones in the picture in the previous blog entry) and my chocolate brown tony lama western boots to a shoe shop. i got the boots resoled, and i got the shoes reconditioned and the soles re-glued. i picked them up yesterday. i think i'm going to not use the boots on my motorcycle anymore. in fact, i'm probably about to order a new pair of motorcycle boots to replace the frye harness boots that finally fell apart too much a few months ago. i think i may get some pretty awesome boots. we'll see.
friday my oldest pair of pants started shredding. so today i went to old navy and picked up a new pair of jeans so the number in my rotation would stay consistent. i also picked up a pair of really dark brown/greyish loose khakis, and a few pair of interesting socks (stripes, squares, skulls). we'll see if i wear the socks or not.
inez: (concerned) how are you, jerry?
dignan: (flat, emotionless) i feel great, inez.
anthony: he's...uh...under the weather a little bit. so i, uh...
(from bottle rocket)
Posted by TeRRY at 10:58 PM | comments (2)
April 23, 2008
me and my motorcycle
there aren't all that many pictures of me floating around where my face isn't covered. here's one taken by my friend jack potts while we were on our brenham excursion a few weeks ago...
it was taken very near the entrance to the washington-on-the-brazos state park. it should be immediately obvious for numerous reasons why i don't like having my picture taken. but i do like my motorcycle. and my shoes. anyway, jack is bohemian photography and he does some cool stuff.
Posted by TeRRY at 11:07 PM | comments (5)
April 22, 2008
i'm still here. no, really.
i've gotten really bad lately about posting. i hate to say that i've got better things to do, but....
i did my taxes at some point last week. since i can claim almost nothing without some work, it's basically me inputting my single w-2, my few small 1099-int values, taking the standard deduction, and seeing where things stand. this year i got back $734. which is nice. i'm thinking i may add it to the economic stimulus refund (or whatever it's being called) and get a flat panel lcd or plasma screen to replace my 10 year old 36 inch rca tube tv. i may drop some more cash in so i can get a good screen. and a good size...but my tv stand isn't designed for larger than 50 inches. we'll see.
last week i went and picked up a new camera i ordered online. they required a signature for delivery and i was never at home when they came by, so on tuesday i took a long lunch and went by a fedex home delivery location down by hobby airport and picked it up. i ended up getting a canon sd870. it's an 8 megapixel compact camera with a wide angle lens. it has a 3 inch lcd screen and no viewfinder. i haven't used it much at all yet, but it'll replace my canon s410 (4 megapixel), which was starting to get flaky at times.
a while back i ordered a bunch of usb to serial converters off of ebay. locally the things are outlandishly priced. i think the cheapest ones i saw were $35 or something. so i got about 6 dongle versions and 2 cabled versions through ebay from a shop in hong kong. the total price per unit was around $8. i still have yet to test them out though. being that i work with servers, i have a need from time to time to hook into a serial port for console access, and serial is becoming more and more scarce on laptops. carrying one of the dongle versions in my laptop bag will be insignificant as far as space and weight.
i also ordered a couple of very small 4-port usb 2 hubs. one looks sort of like a white ipod shuffle (the old design) or the apple remote. sort of. the other is a black metal tube with chrome end caps. i figure i'll keep one in my laptop bag in case i need more than one usb port on my macbook air. i doubt i'll ever need it, but it adds pretty much no weight and takes up almost no space. the other i got since i don't have a usb 2 hub at home. i only have an old belkin usb 1 hub. not sure if i'll need it. but since they were about $10 each total cost i figured "why not?".
friday evening i went to walter's on washington and enjoyed a free show. scott hatch (burnt toast vinyl) had jack plus guest put on the guest list for the unwed sailor show. the turnout was pretty low. four bands played. one of the guys was in ester drang, so after the show jack went up and talked to him and mentioned i was the guy they'd stayed with a few years ago in houston, who had pigs. he said he would never forget that...they woke up and there was a pig staring in at them through the window. ha. another odd thing was that at some point this kind of awkward looking fellow walked in, and i suddenly realized who i was pretty sure it was. i leaned over to jack and said "man, i'm pretty sure that guy is...there was this kid who used to be at all the xian shows, and he was kind of awkward, but he talked a lot..." and jack said "talkie?" i laughed and said "yes!" i didn't think jack would remember. there are only about 4 people in the world who would even know that. after the show, jack and i went to the house of pies.
saturday i spent a few hours helping sue pick up a dresser or some piece of bedroom furniture, which she'd found on craigslist. we ate at a panda express, which i'd never eaten at but didn't find all that exciting. i got back to their place and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening there. both jack and sue fell asleep during snl, so i quietly made my exit and headed home.
sunday i ate at texadelphia, then went to ikea and bought one of the effektiv storage units. i got (from bottom up, all in black-brown): base with the front legs that stick out (i didn't realize they were plastic, which is disappointing), double height unit with solid doors, double height unit with frosted glass doors, and single height unit with solid doors. i put the body together sunday and did all of the doors and handles on monday. it's pretty tall. but i think it'll provide some good storage space in my office, which i need. i probably need a second one though. while there i also picked up an ice cube tray and a frosted glass hurricane lamp (sort of...a candle lamp).
jack came over late last night and picked me up and we went to the house of pies. he brought me some snickerdoodles that sue had made and said "these are some incredible snickerdoodles...probably the best sue's made." i had one this evening when i got home. jack was right. the one i had was pretty much a perfect snickerdoodle. sigh.
in the last week or two, i've starting going through all of the stuff i had packed up for tamara that she left behind. i need to get it done well before i move again, and i'm feeling like i've gotten to the point where almost any lingering emotional attachment is gone. i'm going through it and seeing if there is anything i put in i'd like to keep, then i'm handing it all off to jack and sue. if tamara wants to get it from them or look through it she can; otherwise, i suppose most of it will be donated to the salvation army or something. i just don't want to be the one responsible for getting rid of it, since it isn't mine to dispose of.
Posted by TeRRY at 8:34 PM | comments (4)
April 12, 2008
distracted? who, me?
huh. almost two weeks since my last entry. both a lot and not much has happened.
the geek gathering was last friday. it went alright. while there, jay mentioned word had gotten back to the owner of joystix about us talking about the place on the show, so he offered to give us passes to meet us and discuss the possibility of hosting something in the future there. it was cool to go back. i played wizard of wor some more. i also played a sit down racing game with groove. he won two out of three, both times beating me just barely. and i thought i had skilz. at least i'm fast on my bike. :)
last saturday i'd dropped by cactus music because i was looking for some stuff by coppe, which i'd heard on the new soma fm station digitalis. they didn't have any, so on thursday i dropped by soundwaves. they also didn't have any stuff by her. turns out i guess it's kind of hard to find. i did pick up some other stuff at soundwaves though:
- dirty rotten hitz - d.r.i. (anarchy music)
- autoimmune - meat beat manifesto (metropolis)
- the mind is a terrible thing to taste - ministry (sire/warner brothers)
- such great heights (single) - the postal service (subpop)
old punk/hardcore, old industrial, new meat beat, and the postal service single i didn't have.
this past sunday i went over to the potts to cook out, and i was surprised to see josh caldwell there. evidently he and his family are most likely moving back to houston. i took a romeo and juliet maduro over there, and smoked some of it. unfortunately, my body decided it was too much and didn't appreciate me for it. i tried to hold out, but after about 30 minutes my body decided it wasn't worth it. i got up and left, and out by my pickup i went ahead and threw up a few times instead of having it happen while i was actually driving. let that be a lesson to all you kids -- smoking isn't fun or cool!
i missed an email from my mom reminding me of my dad's birthday. and i didn't remember myself. i guess i should put that in my calendar. plus the last email from my mom started with something along the lines of "i'm writing this expecting i will get a reply". i haven't replied yet. perhaps i'm not as good of a son as all of the holiday cards i get from my parents would seem to suggest.
yesterday was maintenance work, so i went into work late and stayed at work until about 12:30am. everything went well, i have to say it was a good day.
today i got up way earlier than i should on a weekend...before 9am. i headed over to some soccer fields and got too much sun while watching dietrich and jackson play soccer. during jackson's game i was playing with dietrich and had him on my shoulders and was leaning back and forward and to the side, and at some point i strained my neck so now it hurts. jennifer's kids were in the same soccer program...family fair positive soccer, or something like that. it's kind of funny because it's supposed to be non-competitive. so they don't really keep score, they rotate players into every position, parents and coaches have to only say positive things, etc. i like to make fun of it, but i understand what it is a reaction to. afterward we went and ate at cici's (doesn't that seem like the only appropriate thing to do?), then i came home and took two or three naps.
oh yeah, at some point i watched the extras on winged migration. it turns out they didn't use drone planes. they actually had gliders and balloons and boats and stuff with people on them. the way they got a lot of the close-up and amazing shots is because they had people live around the birds from the time they were born, had them get used to the equipment and such, and then were able to film them from very close while they were flying. it was some really interesting extra information on the dvd.
Posted by TeRRY at 11:07 PM | comments (7)
March 31, 2008
"he remembers those vanished years..."
thursday i took a vacation day from work and made a trip to brenham with the potts. they were going to take some family pictures for easter. they had a full mini-van with them plus sarah, and they were planning on leaving earlier than i wanted to, so i ended up taking my motorcycle. i had no sunscreen and got a bit more sun than i'd thought i would, but that's what is supposed to happen on the first spring road trip i suppose. we met at der weiner haus and biergarten in downtown brenham for lunch. i had a brat with sauerkraut, some german potato salad, and a couple of shiner bocks. after that we headed to the blue bell creamery for their tour. it was interesting, but i didn't think it was awesome or anything. from there we headed out 105 to the franciscan poor clares monastery. the nuns who live there raise miniature horses. i got very little sleep the night before, so i actually ended up opening the sliding door on the potts' mini-van and getting in a seat and sleeping for an hour or two while everyone else looked around. we left there and headed down 105 to the washington-on-the-brazos state park. sarah and sue had been trading riding with me on my motorcycle, so on the way there sarah took some pictures of sue with me riding down the highway. when we left the park, jack took a few pictures of me, and me and sarah, on my bike in front of an old metal shed building. hopefully i'll be able to get copies of all of these pictures, and maybe i'll put some up. the plan was to eat at some buffet place, but we we ran long at the park so they were going to be closed. instead, we headed toward navasota and ended up finding a mexican food restaurant near where 6 and business 6 meet. it was pretty good. the ride back to houston was kind of chilly, but fortunately i'd taken my leather jacket and a knit beanie so it wasn't too bad.
friday when i was on my way to lunch in my pickup, i came up to a red light on montrose. a car pulled up next to me and the guy wearing a fedora driving the car looked over at me and said "bob wills is still the king." that was nice.
friday evening chris had invited me to hang out with him and some of his friends. they were celebrating a couple of their birthdays. i know most of that circle, but not real well. so normally i would have politely passed, but the place they were going seemed too possibly cool to skip. the place is called joystix, and is in downtown houston on franklin near minute maid park. the guy buys, repairs, and sales arcade games and pinball machines. the showroom probably has 100+ arcade games and 50+ pinball machines. the first and last friday of every month, they open up the showroom and for a $15 flat fee you can play all of the games between 9pm - 2am. they have a cash bar, and even have staff that will let you order at the games and bring your drink to you. pretty slick. i played frogger, asteroids deluxe, tempest, donkey kong, donkey kong jr., joust, centipede, tron, deer hunter ii, mortal kombat, simpsons pinball, and family guy pinball. but the best thing of all was an original stand up version of wizard of wor. i pumped so many quarters into one of those back in 1982 or so. it was awesome to see the game and play it again. i recommend checking it out.
saturday afternoon i headed to the potts and had supper there, then we all watched winged migration. it's a very impressive film following various types of birds in their migratory patterns. the cinematography is incredible. it said they spent four years collecting the footage for the movie. a lot of the shots were of birds taking off, landing, and in flight. they had to have used gliders or drones or something to get the shots they did. (i haven't watched the extras yet, they probably go into that.) there are a lot of really beautiful shots, along with a bunch of amazing sequences of birds in flight.
sunday i slept in late, then in the evening i headed to the potts because they were grilling and asked me to come over. i brought beer brats, jalapeño hot links, and some andouille sausage. i had some of each of those and a couple of big reds while we sat outside and talked.
this evening i watched kar wai wong's in the mood for love. a beautifully shot movie, but jeez how sad. it's set in hong kong in the early to mid 60's. two married couples move in next to each other. the husband in one couple is gone a lot, as is the wife in the other. the two left behind eventually discover their spouses are having an affair with each other. they end up spending a lot of time together and become close, but they don't want to be like their spouses. i don't really want to lay out the whole storyline. but i will say i think it was a really cool decision to never really show the faces of the spouses who start off having an affair with each other. and d4mn, it's a sad story of possibly prevailing morality leading to utterly heart-breaking missed moments in a fscked up situation. okay, i guess i couldn't help but mention that.
that era has passed.
nothing that belonged to it exists any more.
he remembers those vanished years.
as though looking through a dusty window pane,
the past is something he could see, but not touch.
and everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.
(texts used in in the mood for love, from "intersection" by liu yi-chang)
Posted by TeRRY at 11:58 PM | comments (9)