Month: October 2007

i don’t know if you saw the news on this in the last couple of days:
“Microsoft Acquires Hospital IT Software From GCS” — InformationWeek
computer business review announced “Microsoft plans hospital software rollout after GCS buy”
and internetnews.com ran an article with the headline: “Welcome to Microsoft Medical Center”
something seemed unofficial about the name “microsoft medical center” to me though. a bit of sleuthing around online and a healthy dose of google-fu and i somehow managed to run across the splash screen of microsoft’s new hospital software. i’m not sure this has been actually released to the public, so i may have a scoop on my hands! without further ado, here it is:

in case you didn’t know it, Texas has a yom (year of manufacture) law. what that means is that if you have a vehicle older than 25 years, you can find Texas plates from that year and use them on your vehicle instead of the current plates.
after a few weeks of poking around on ebay and watching 1965 Texas plates sell, i finally managed to get a pair at a price i thought was only somewhat higher than i should be able to get them for. (of course, others sold for higher — so maybe my idea of what i should be able to get them for is off.) anyway, i got them in the mail a week or two after the auction ended. i didn’t buy unused ones, but these are in pretty good shape. (a cool thing about pre-1969 plates is they aren’t reflectorized, so you can strip and repaint them fairly easily — which i may do at some point.)
a few days later i took them down to the local tax office so the dmv could approve them (the condition, and that no one currently has the same plate id). that all went well, so i now have them on my ’65 ford f-100 instead of the generic modern plates.

it’d be cool if my plates were “HaVoK 666”, but i manipulated the plate a bit in fireworks. still, it’s pretty cool to have 1965 plates on my pickup, and it’s a license i can remember pretty easily.

monday after work i headed over to border’s to pick up some things that were on sale. here’s what i ended up getting:

• * airplane! (“don’t call me shirley!” edition) – zucker/abrahams/zucker (paramount)
• * anchorman (unrated edition) – will ferrell (dreamworks)
• * (national lampoon’s) animal house (double secret probation edition) – landis, belushi (universal)
• * fargo (special edition) – coen brothers (mgm)

all movies i’ve been meaning to buy, but just never got around to doing it. pretty cheap prices on all of them made me decide to go ahead.

• * comfort eagle – cake (columbia)
• * pressure chief – cake (columbia)

i think that finishes off the cake cds i wasn’t in possession of.
after my purchase i headed over to crescent city beignets and read for awhile.
wednesday was the first of three fundraiser shows for the radio show. jay was out, and he and peter usually do the major pledge pitching, so it was up to barrett, dwight, and i to pick up some slack. i’m happy to say i think we did a good job, and we managed to go over our goal for the evening. yea! now next week we can go back to letting jay and peter do most of the pitching. : )
saturday night was chris and mary’s “time traveler” themed halloween party. originally it was dr. who based only, but that quickly expanded. i had mulled several possibilities: 12 monkeys, planet of the apes, 2001: a space odyssey, etc. i went to a few places and wasn’t satisfied with any of the outfits. mostly i didn’t want to wear a thin nylon drape of fabric as a costume. so at a target — which only had a few things left — i ran across a “politician” mask, which was supposed to be arnold schwarzenegger. and just like that, there it was…terminator. you see, it really doesn’t take much work for me to go as the terminator…i already have the outfit. leather jacket? check. black t-shirt? check. big black boots? check. dark shades? check. motorcycle? check. guns? check. i don’t have a pistol-grip shotgun, but we joked that i would have gotten stopped by the police driving down the street on my motorcycle with a shotgun — and when they came up and asked what the heck i was doing i would turn and look at them and after a few seconds go: “fsck you, 4sshole.” (that’ll make sense if you’ve seen the movie.) then we joked i’d be calling from jail for bail money, after getting tazed and/or shot. i wore the mask most of the time for the first half of the party and didn’t talk much at all…but that full head mask was freakin’ hot.
unfortunately, i didn’t find sarah connor. hhmmm…come to think of it, perhaps i should have gone as kyle reese instead…

thursday around 10pm brad texted me to see if i wanted to go to the continental club with him. i wasn’t too excited about the band playing, but i told him i’d ride with him and i’d eat at tacos-a-go-go or something. we met in front of poison girl, but decided to just go straight over then instead of going into poison girl. we got over to main and tacos-a-go-go and sig’s were closed. stupid weekday hours. so instead we went into the big top and listened to umbrella man some. they were intriguing. several people have told me i need to see them, but i don’t think i’d ever managed to do it. one of their normal guys was playing for billy joe shaver, but i liked what i heard. they were doing old western swing, old country, and tejano music. what a great mix! after an hour or two at the big top, we rode over to poison girl. we sat there for an hour or two and talked. later the tamale guy dropped by and we bought a dozen. man, those tamales are good. plus i hadn’t eaten since lunch and i had been drinking for two or three hours. (i know those are not good conditions for accurately judging tamales, but i’ve had them under more normal conditions as well and they were still good.) we left around 2am. i hit the bed around 3am.
the reason i was able to go out late on a thursday night without worrying about work the next morning is because i was coming in late since i was working friday night. except then my boss called me twice in the morning, around 9am and again around 9:30am. argh! so since i was awake anyway, i went ahead and went in. i had thought i would be done with work by 9pm or 10pm, but i ended up staying until about 11:30pm. i left and headed over to west alabama ice house for robb zipp’s 30th birthday festivities, but by the time i got there he was gone. so i bought a beer and sat down and tried to figure out what if anything i was going to do with the rest of the night. after about 20 minutes of sitting there never saying a word to anyone, a couple of guys rode up on bikes and one of them had recently done some work on his bike and had some bolts come loose on him. we talked for awhile, and eventually i went to the house and got a couple of pair of pliers for him to try and tighten the bolts with. we talked some more and traded cards. (turns out one of them knew barrett pretty well.) so even though it started off sucking, it ended on a good note.
saturday i got up and got a text message from brad asking if i was interested in having brunch with him. we met at an ihop near washington and i-10, then afterward we went riding up and down memorial and allen parkway. man, the weather has been awesome for riding most of the last couple of weeks.
i had been thinking about going to oni-con, but i never got in touch with barrett, and groovehouse said he was doing stuff in prep for the texans game the next day, so i ended up deciding to not go. sue called to see if i wanted to eat supper and watch the sugarland town square movie, but when i checked their website the movie wasn’t that night. soon after getting off the phone with her, amateria texted me about “astronomy day”. after her telling me about it, i thought sue might think her kids would enjoy going to that, so i called her and mentioned it. she was down with it, so i went over to their house and we went to the george observatory, located in brazos bend state park. it was pretty cool, but there were a lot of people there so i didn’t really do much looking through the telescopes or anything. it’d be cool to go back there sometime when there aren’t huge crowds. afterward, we went back to their house and watched snl.
when i went to leave, my headlight on my motorcycle didn’t come on. this is the second time that’s happened. although the other time was a week or two ago, and it was off for a couple of seconds and then came on by itself. this time it stayed off while i knocked on the headlight housing and moved the handlebars and such. eventually it came on when i honked the horn. i don’t know why it’s doing that, but i’m way overdue to take the bike in for maintenance work and such anyway, so maybe they can figure it out then.
today i got up and mostly sat around the house. i ended up watching the second half of the texans game. they were doing very poorly but i watched anyway. then in the fourth quarter suddenly the titans weren’t doing anything and the texans offense went crazy. they caught up in the last couple of minutes, kicked on onside kick, got it, and drove down and scored to take the lead with less than a minute left! they kicked off to the titans, then the titans drove down and kicked a field goal in the last seconds to win. *sigh* i hate the titans. stupid bud adams.
because i chose to watch the game, i didn’t make it to kymberlie’s pre-activity dinner at lupe tortilla. instead i ended up meeting them at verizon wireless theater. tonight was the final bout of the 2007 houston roller derby season. i did manage to see robb zipp during halftime and wish him a happy birthday. as usual, there were lots of cool looking alt girls. one girl in particular stood out — beautiful eyes, beautiful smile, beautiful body, beautiful thin gold wedding band. oh well, you lose some, you lose some more. that just means there’s still more money for me to use on weapons and vehicles, i guess.

the friday before last after work i was supposed to drop by a happy hour being put together by luis, but it was a maintenance friday and i was supposed to work so i decided to skip the happy hour and just head over to the data center. plus it was at taco milagro, and it’s a bit too busy and trendy for me, so that didn’t help. but i had originally planned to go. oh well.
last saturday i slept in. i went over to jenni’s noodle house and had a late lunch. that evening i went over to the bopho studio and ate supper with the potts. i don’t really remember anything else, so hopefully it wasn’t anything too exciting. i’d hate to forget something exciting i did.
last sunday i slept in, then went with the potts clan to target where they were picking up some food items. but i finally got hold of a floor fan! yea! although it’s plastic and i was hoping for metal…but i was desperate at this point. hopefully it will function well. from there we headed over to the bopho studio for lunch. i hung out there until they were going to leave for first baptist.
once i got home, i headed over to border’s to use a coupon i had. while there, i also noticed they had a dvd version of a movie i only have on vhs, so i went ahead and picked it up too.

• * brazil (3-disc set) – terry gilliam (criterion)
• * night of the living dead – george romero (20th century fox)

i already had the single disc criterion version of brazil, but i really like the movie and wanted to own the material on the other two discs of the three disc set. when i saw the night… dvd, it was marked down to $9.99. i picked it up, but then noticed it was a colorized version. bleck. but before i set it back down, i looked on the back and saw it also said it had a remastered black and white version. so i decided to get it. i’m not a huge horror fan, but night… is one of the early films for the style in that genre, and it’s kind of campy too, so i like it. the best part was when i got up to the register it mis-rang, and after rescanning it and the same price popped up she gave it to me for the price it rang up at. (i think it was at 99% off.)
also, while looking at the border’s email with the coupon i was using, i’d noticed they had a couple of books i was interested in on a “buy one, get a second at half price” list. it took me a while to find both of them, so i ended up finding another book i was interested in as well…

• * the language of G-d – francis s. collins (free press)
• * velvet elvis: repainting the christian faith – rob bell (zondervan)
• * light from the christian east: an introduction to the orthodox tradition – james r. payton, jr. (ivp academic)

an hour or two later, the potts called to let me know they were going for supper, so i joined them at cain’s. from there i met up with luis and a friend of his at buffalo wild wings on gray in midtown.
monday evening i went to bohemian photography for jackson and dietrich’s birthday party. i tend to get blamed for riling kids up, just because i’ll joke around and play with them and chase them and they’ll start screaming. is that really my fault? : ) parties are also a chance for me to have to try and avoid people taking crowd pictures. i had to work late so i didn’t get to get them birthday gifts. (but i took care of that after work thursday.)
after the party was over i decided to work on jack’s non-working vonage device. i was in the back room on the phone with their support but i lost the call. i went out and jack had disappeared downstairs and sue was the only one upstairs. i went back into the back room and messed with it some more. when i came out the next time, sue was gone, all the lights were off, and emily was asleep on the couch. i looked around for awhile, then decided…i’d just leave…i guess. evidently jack crashed downstairs, the kids crashed downstairs, emily crashed upstairs, and i was left behind.
tuesday after work i went back to border’s to use a coupon. i had a “get a single cd for $11.99 (limit 3)”. i decided i’d try to pick up 3 cds i’d like to have, but never feel strongly enough about to buy when i’m at the store. i knocked through several selections they didn’t have or were only $12 or $13 anyway, and eventually (after looking around for a pretty long time) ended up with these:

• * white blood cells – the white stripes (third man records / sheridan square records)
• * dark side of the moon – pink floyd (capitol)
• * the singles – the clash (epic / legacy / sony bmg)
• * b-sides and rarities – cake (upbeat records)

you might notice that’s four. the cake cd was $10 and i hadn’t seen it before. cake has decided to start their own label and release independently. this cd is scratch and sniff. i didn’t know it at the time, but there are four different covers. i ended up getting the purple (grape) one. there’s also a hidden gasoline scent under the clear cd tray. i’ll probably be buying more of the white stripes. i’m not a big fan of pink floyd, but dark side of the moon is a great album. (and the wall is pretty good too.)
at some point i joined linkedin. it’s a networking site, but is geared at business people and professionals. i’d thought about joining for awhile, but never had gotten around to it. someone invited me, so i decided i might as well.

this morning i had a really cool thing appear in a dream. i was at a bar or something, sitting at a table on those high barstools, talking to some guy about troubleshooting dsl/cable modems i think. a girl came up and sat on the stool right next to me and was happy and joking and loud and flirting with me. the guy i was talking to either knew her and didn’t like her, or was annoyed by her, but i was attracted to her and enjoying her being beside me. she was a white girl, probably mid- to late-20’s, blonde wavy hair cut in kind of a long bob, wearing i think a red shoulderless dress with a v neckline…sort of marilyn monroe-ish overall (but not any person i recognized). but the coolest thing was her lipstick. i’m not sure i’ve ever seen this, but she had bright red lipstick with a thick gunky white liner on the outside rim and the white had big pieces of glitter on it. it rocked! i wanted to kiss her, but just as the scenario would play out in real life, i got frustrated that i wasn’t going to do anything so i got up and left.
when i woke up, all i could think of is how i bet it tasted like peppermint. man, that would have been awesome. why couldn’t the dream-me be more assertive and forward than the real me, dang it! now i’ll never know. unless i force myself to dream about her again, and make a move this time. but that would just be weird and creepy and very loserish.
so if i do it, i’m not blogging about it. : )

if you’ll recall, a while back i posted how some folk who apparently cared a great deal about my personal mental health and well-being — as well as my success and happiness in life — were letting me on the secret to unlocking such things — by increasing the size of my…male organ. eventually they got a little frightening with their claims, so i decided to politely pass on their wonder-product.
recently, i’ve been getting a new series of messages from some more caring folk. i’m a little confused about exactly how to take what they appear to be trying to tell me though…

Subject: Are you satisfied with the size of your breasts?
 
Increasing your breast size can improve your life, attract new partners, change your love life, inrease your self-esteem. Choose the best breast enhancer [biggiesize], as it is safe and natural.
High level of service. Your order will be packed discreetly without revealing of content details. Fast shipping!
[biggiesize] is the unique chance to return your womanhood!

(product name changed by me, by the way — but the sentiment of the original was similar)
am i “satisfied with the size of [my] breasts”? why are they asking me this? i must admit, i can see how that would attract new partners and change my love life! i’m not sure about increasing my self-esteem though. and i don’t even know what “return your womanhood” means. was it stolen from me? did my parents not tell me something? at least i can rest assured it would be packed discreetly.
then i got this one:

Subject: Have beautiful breasts you have always dreamed of.
 
If you don't want to have potentially dangerous surgery while creams and pumps don't work, take the benefits of natural herbal capsules [biggiesize] to obtain your goal breast size. The results are permanent and really amazing.
[...] Your order will be shipped with no indication as to the content to ensure your privacy. Full confidentiality!
Improve the size and shape of your breasts and surprise your partner.

okay, so it's true i dream of beautiful breasts. but i think they got confused about one thing -- the ones i'm dreaming of...they're NOT MINE! i'm sure the results would be amazing though...in a number of ways. the permanent part doesn't make me feel any better about it. and if i had a partner, i have little doubt she would be surprised. and again, they make sure and let me know everything would be completely confidential and private.
then this one comes into my inbox:

Subject: Start a new life with beautiful large and firm breasts!
 
Embarrassment of small breasts and low self-esteem are buried in the past for those who have discovered a natural breast enhancement [biggiesize]. Herbal capsules are safe for your health and even improve it by removing blockage of veins, for example. It has no side effects.
We ship worldwide in safe and discreet wrapping.
[biggiesize] is a "little secret" of your life success.

again with the discreet packaging! "no side effects"? "start a new life"? "LITTLE SECRET"?! i'm going to go crawl into a corner and curl up in a ball and rock back and forth for awhile now.