Kimputer's Weblog

Yupz, it has grown back, THE White Hair of Wisdom. So again, I’ll be pouring wisdom out of me till I shave it off. A recent incident made me think about some old evolution theories. So, let me be the first one to rewrite those old history and biology books. First take a look at this:
As you can see, I injured my middlefinger, and I thought nothing of it. Till I was just about to begin my relaxation hours in the evening and started Counter-Strike:Source. As I prepared for battle, it finally came to me why I was shaking with fear. It was the injury that made me fear my headshot performance in this online game (which, by the way, did not suffer too much).
Now on to the old theory, where they say we’re more advanced than any other mammal, just because of our thumbs, the dexterity and such. Read more here.
Well, those old book clearly didn’t include a revolutionary game as Counter-Strike:Source, and hence I’ll be starting a rewrite where it’s actually the middlefinger that will replace the thumb in all these old texts. As you can see in the short flash movie (any pro-gamer recognises the position of the left hand, as oppososed to n00bs who use the cursor keys at the right of the keyboard), the middlefinger has TWO important keys to attend to, while the thumb has only the so-so function of jumping, which will not prevent your demise when faced with a spread of bullets from an M4 or AK47. Add to that, that jumping makes sound and will give your position away for eager-listening enemies. I rest my case.

That’s it for me today, till the next hair pops up.

It’s nice to see Bill Gates isn’t holding a grudge against Steve Jobs. Looking at my MSN Messenger window, I saw an icon (4th tab) resembling an iPod, and when I clicked on it, it opened an MSN Shopping window displaying various iPod versions for sale. If those two can work together, I bet we can have world-peace within this decade.

Right on, what have we learned today ? Besides the fact that Paris Hilton’s phone wasn’t really hacked (the supposed hack was actually more in the direction of information grabbing after successfully guessing the blonde’s password) ? Or besides the fact that a lot of stars use T-Mobile (and hence, the Sidekick feature launched last year, of which Paris and Nicole were part of the publicity campaign, which basically is an online version for your pictures, address book and notes handled by a beefed up phone. Or besides the fact that there were no nude pictures to be found (and hence, really boring) ? Or besides the fact that Nicole Richie is using a blackberry ? Or that creating a professional website including the registration of the domain name and getting it live online takes less than a day (godaddy.com took care of www.parishiltonsmobile.com within a day. DURING THE WEEKEND !!!) ?
Not much really.

Yupz, they did it again. The Smoking Gun has gotten a hold on a 1903-page transcript of the procedings that led the Santa Barbara Grand Jury to start the indictment process against Michael Jackson. These 2003/2004 documents are sealed on the strict gag-orderly judge Melville commands. Now on the frontpage of the website, if I were a copying machine company, I’d definitely would want to know if it was your brand which was used (as sneaking out a stack of sealed documents must have involved a super fast machine), and use it as free publicity.
The transcript itself reveals a lot of the sworn witness testimonies from not only the accuser and the family, but also people who worked closely with Michael Jackson. A quick analysis reveals that the stalled trial could go both ways. Many details from all of the questioned parties (including pretty solid evidence supporting the allegations) suggest Jackson could land in jail before his face falls off from un-natural decay (which should happen in just a few more years). A few conflicting details here and there though, could mean that now is problably the time to start your monthly subscription on the How to Sue Michael Jackson Foundation Newsletter. Make up your mind here.

An hourlong of hard thinking, puzzling, scratching on the head and squinting my eyes. But it’s done. The engine (WordPress) running this weblog has been updated a few notches. Nuff work done, so you’ll have to live with the default lay-out that came with it, for a while.

You keep learning new things every day. Today, I learned about the Whizzinator. A fake penis, which you can fill up with the liquid of your choice (usually clean urine), which is kept warm by a heat pack. It’s sold over all over the internet for the sole purpose of beating drug tests (and hence, I never heard of it before).
Anyways, you know Tom Sizemore, the bad guy from Striking Distance (starring with Bruce Willis) ? Or the bad guy from Heat ? Or the soldier from Black Hawk Down ? Or the soldier from Saving Private Ryan ? Well, that guy has both a drug problem and a beating girlfriend problem (particularly Heidi Fleiss), was caught with a Whizzinator during his probation, and has since failed more drug tests than there are M&M’s in a yellow bag.
I wonder if it’s good (since everybody now knows about this device) or bad (since a celebrity has been caught) publicity for the company in question ?

New software is also fun, by the way. Mostly viruses. Nifty little piece of highly efficient software code. We’ve seen them with advanced anti-virus detection (and disable mechanism). Same for firewalls. Then we have those with a built-in SMTP engine. Those with advance email scanning. Those with advance (in- and outbound) replication mechanism. And the list goes on and on.
Now two of the new ones are just as innovative. One turns the volume down for you (so you can’t hear the warnings bells going off. Interesting addition to the domestic toilet seat arguments), and one clearly states “You’re stupid” on-screen, and through the speakers (hopefully this feature is not copyrighted, because it’s very useful to say the least). But what if both are on your PC, who would win ?

Sometimes tinkering with old stuff is fun. Mixing it with new stuff could be funnier. Hardware wise, but also software wise.
Now, it’s a Windows 2000 Server with Exchange 2000. SMTP part works good, with normal e-mail clients. Outlook 2003 though will send mail through Exchange, and drop it in the sent items (as it should), then the Exchange picks it up, sends the mail. But on the outbound connection, it only sends EHLO and then QUIT (maybe a few RESET’s inbetween), with no real data exchanged (the pun !). This will leave the user to think everything is okay, and even a system administrator would think it’s okay, as no real error occurs. Don’t you just love illogical unpredictable stuff ? Well, off to patch the whole thing up, even though I know I’m not even going to use it.

They win. I give up.

Geachte heer Ung,

Het is niet geheel duidelijk of u al antwoord heeft gekregen op u vraag. Mocht dit niet zo zijn dan horen wij dit graag. Mocht u nog
vragen hebben, dan kunt u voor meer informatie terecht op http://www.upc.nl.

Wij vertrouwen erop u hiermee voldoende te hebben ge
nformeerd.

Met vriendelijke groet,

UPC Nederland

They’re stupid. And they have their feet in their ears. On top of that, their heads are up their asses. And here’s the proof:

Geachte heer Ung,

Wij danken u voor uw schrijven.

Mocht u nog vragen hebben, dan kunt u voor meer informatie terecht op http://www.upc.nl.

Wij vertrouwen erop u hiermee voldoende te hebben ge
nformeerd.

Met vriendelijke groet,

UPC Nederland

Het is niet mogelijk te mailen naar service@upc.nl. Indien u nog een vraag of opmerking heeft dan kunt u reageren via het
contactformulier op de website van UPC. U vindt het contactformulier op http://www.upc.nl

Did I ever asked for your thanks ??? And, this is not the standard automated reply, as I already have that. From the email header, it’s clearly another stupid “service” employee on a laptop writing this ingenious reply, hoping the case will go away. One more UPC envelope in my mailbox, and I’m writing again.

Yeah, I gotta get something off my chest. And since I don’t have chest hair, yup, it’s THAT time again. Gotta bother UPC a bit again. (History links one two three). Off to http://qmail.upc.nl/ to complain about this:

Geachte UPC,
mijn ervaring (aanvaringen meer) met uw bedrijf zijn altijd slecht geweest. Door uw technische en administratieve onkunde zijn zaken geheel uit de hand gelopen, maar gelukkig ben ik er met lichte kleerscheuren afgekomen. Of toch niet. Mijn leraar Nederlands heeft me meerdere malen onvoldoendes gegeven voor het onterecht, te veel en overdrijvend gebruik van eufemisme. Dus laat ik het maar herformuleren: Ik heb na menig jaren vechten, half ontbloot het strijdtoneel verlaten.
Ik lijdt tevens nog steeds aan een lichte vorm van het UPC complex, zegt mijn psychiater. Dus hier ligt ook het grote probleem. Ik krijg met regelmaat nog steeds geadresseerde reclame van u. In de laatste stonden maar liefst drie aanbiedingen. Dat alleen is al erg, maar bij het legen van de postbus en het zien van een UPC envelop, gecombineerd met het UPC complex slaat mijn hart zeker 8 slagen over, waarna het ook nog eens in 3x turbo mode gaat voor tenminste 3 minuten.
Laatst was ik voor een routine controle bij de huisarts en was voor deze keer ook helemaal aangesloten op diverse meetapparatuur. Geheel onverwachts schotelde mijn (nu dus voormalig) huisarts mij een UPC envelop voor, en weldra ging al het meetapparatuur piepen. Mijn psychiater heeft achter mijn rug om contact gehad met mijn huisarts. Conclusie: abnormal myocardial contractility. Een lichte vorm van een hartinfarct dus.
Graag wilde ik dus niet alleen schriftelijk bevestiging dat ik van de lijst die jullie overijverige Director Marketing gebruikt voor de advertenties wordt geschrapt, maar ook wilde ik graag weten op welk slinkse manier jullie Eneco mijn persoonsgegevens afhandig heeft gemaakt. Jullie hebben weliswaar het tv en internet via de kabel van Eneco overgenomen, maar een spelfout in mijn naam (die jullie dus gebruiken) is pas bij Eneco in 2002 opgetreden, lang na de overname dus.

Hopend nog maar EEN (lees: 1, interpreteer: aller aller laatste) brief te ontvangen, verblijf ik,

KaNam Ung

Third in a row. Another TV episode only available in VCD format (320×240) instead of the usual XViD format (624×352). And on my kick-ass LCD screen, that’s kinda fuzzy (or rather, blocky. But fuzzy sounds nicer). Can you imagine the whole world is actually depending on just a handful of guys with decent equipment to capture it, encode it, and distribute it ?

Just found a COMPLETELY WHITE hair on my chin (must be some 4 weeks old). I kid you not.
So it’s probably time to say something reealllly really wise now. And on the way home, listening to the radio, all I could come up with was:

Any radio host playing Nelly Furtado and Evanascence back to back, should be have all his hair pulled out, and shoved down his ears.

Anyways, gonna shave now, let’s see if I’m just as wise in 4 weeks as I was today .

It’s that time again. But this time, there’s a Quarter Pounder on the line (only for question 1, there’s a bet involved), so please answer truthfully.

1. Answer what YOU think (usually, K-uestions are about what you think I think)

This McMenu (not a fixed menu of course, it’s custom ordered), for one person only, is:
1. much
2. not so much

2.
a. Braeburn
b. Pink Lady

3. This kinda sucKs, but I’m probably (not totally sure yet), allergic to (kicking in a migraine):
a. Water
b. Sesame
c. Peanuts
d. Latex

This icon will indicate if I have answered the K-uestions yet

As I mentioned earlier, new ice cream taster is my second third fourth and fifth middle name, but somehow, this one slipped under the radar for more than a month now. The supermarket put in the lower parts of the freezer, and hence I missed it.
So, what do two proven flavors do combined ? It’s the usual sum of all parts equation. It’s marvelous !
The chocolate Hertog part is creamy as usual, and soft as well. The flavor is deep and lasting. Then the Toblerone parts add a different kind of sweet, and the extra texture to makes it as addictive as the sum of all parts equation would have calculated. I.e., it’s quite dangerous.8+.