JaceSan

Men in Black

2008-08-24T18:29:25Z

This picture was taken a few years ago. After my friends' wedding at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas.

Pray all you like...

2008-08-23T19:51:39Z

...your god will not save you.

The Agony of Defeat (or da feet)

2008-08-23T18:52:17Z

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,409525,00.html

Just when I thought the Olympics would get boring because womens beach volleyball was over.

The ref should've beat his ass, then disqualified him.

Shenanigans

2008-08-23T16:54:03Z

I logged in last night/early morning and found my default icon had been replaced.

Goony Goo Goo (Update)

2008-08-13T16:05:50Z

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402882,00.html

These "people" have a place in Plains Indian folklore. I'm curious about the press conference coming up on Friday. Could be interesting.

EDIT: "There's a sucker born every minute."

Message from Queen Mum (courtesy of craigslist/LA)

2008-08-06T18:57:56Z

Message from the Queen to the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour', 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as 'like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let M*crosoft know on your behalf. The M*crosoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accept ed provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

Wild Kingdom IV

2008-08-01T22:20:30Z

I started feeding this feral male not quite a year ago. Still haven't caught him to get fixed though. Meet Timmy...

Sometimes I forget and leave the food dish out after dark. Not sure what to name these two.

Integrated Circuits

2008-07-31T18:27:47Z

But the research into solid-state components that the Germans had been doing and the early work at Bell Labs was nothing compared to the marvel that Twining had shown von Braun and the other rocket scientists in New Mexico. Under the magnifying glass, the group thought they saw not just a single solid-state switch but a whole system of switches integrated into each other and comprising what looked like an entire circuit or system of circuits. They couldn't be sure because no one had ever seen anything even remotely like this before. But it showed them an image of what the future of electronics could be if a way could be found to manufacture this kind of circuit on Earth. Suddenly, the huge guidance-control systems necessary to control the flight of a rocket, which, in 1947, were too big to be squeezed into the fuselage of the rocket, could be miniaturized so that the rocket could have its own automatic guidance system. If we could duplicate what the EBEs had, we, too, would have the ability to explore space. In effect the reverse-engineering of solid-state integrated circuitry began in the weeks and months after the crash even though William Shockley at Bell Labs was already working on a version of his transistor as early as 1946.

-from "The Day After Roswell", Col. Philip J. Corso

Wild Kingdom III

2008-07-22T06:01:33Z

I just experienced one of the most amazing encounters ever. I went outside to smoke, and when I wandered around the corner of the building watched a couple of spooked deer run off. I was surprised when one of them didn't continue running with the other one. It was sticking around to look after it's other friend.

That's when I noticed the other deer that hadn't run off. It was still in the bushes even as I approached. Stuck in a wrought iron fence. Yeah. It was wedged in there alright. I petted it a couple times trying to calm it down while I tried to figure this out. The other one stood within earshot and made some weird noises. Like it was talking to the one trapped or something.

I tried to pull the bars apart far enough for the critter to work it's way out. That didn't work. It dawned on me rather quickly that I needed to grab a tire jack to wedge the bars apart. The deer ran off seemingly uninjured.

Sorry 'bout the fence.

EDIT: These were young deer. The one that didn't stick around had the beginnings of antlers, while the stuck one, and the one that came back to check on it didn't have any.

Grand Theft Auto

2008-07-17T13:31:44Z

I blame Rockstar Games for our state's problem.

EDIT: Because I'm sure this has nothing to do with it.

Conventions

2008-07-16T20:03:10Z

I went to Semicon West yesterday morning. I was even there on time for the keynote speaker's address, and the cheesy ribbon-cutting ceremony right after. I haven't been to one of these conventions since I graduated in 2003. That was back when the event took place over the course of a week, and all the manufacturers involved with "back-end" processing had their own separate sort of convention down here in San Jose. Times have changed.

Not only have they combined the front-end and back-end processing agendas into a three day event, there were special seminars and rooms set up for photo-voltaic devices, aka solar-cells. The reason for a stronger push in this area of semiconductors, besides people becoming more concerned about alternative energies, is that they've figured out how to make the devices more efficient. Prior to recent developments, solar-cells simply weren't cost effective to produce. Their energy output didn't justify the cost of manufacturing them.

I also stuck around for a few presentations about MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) because that's another up-and-coming technology that I'm interested in working with. Besides Texas Instruments I learned about a couple of other companies that I need to tailor my resume towards before sending it off to them.

EDIT: I got over their not hiring me enough to purchase one of their products, but this is interesting to see. :)

Kittehs

2008-07-14T04:18:08Z

These are the wild cats I had fixed. Sebastian is the younger one that's semi-feral, and taken up residence in the garage. I was keeping her inside so she wouldn't bug her mother, Boots, while she was eating.

Boots is the one I trapped when she was about seven weeks pregnant with her second litter. Sebastian being the result of her first litter right after she became fertile. Yeah, she was the equivalent of a kitteh teen pregnancy.

A better shot of Sebastian.

WoW

2008-07-05T18:17:09Z

So with the acquisition of a newer, better PC I decided to try this World of Warcraft game I've been hearing about.

It was nice interacting with you all. See you in about two weeks when my trial edition is up.

Jace

Blimey!

2008-07-02T15:19:10Z

Abandon Ship!

"It's a rare place in Fremont, as opposed to the usual strip mall crap," Neu said. "We'll miss it."

Aye.

Precognition

2008-06-25T22:51:36Z

My god-daughter called me the other weekend on Father's Day. We chatted for over an hour about various stuff so I didn't remember her telling me about the dream that she'd had.

She called me up the other night to remind me that it was about a boat capsizing. She was freaked out because she was reading about the ferry boat over in the Phillipines. She said she recognized one of the rescue workers because there was some guy in her dream with a flourescent orange shirt.

It's not the first one that she's had, and she told me that the there's something different about the precognitive ones. I told her she should keep a journal of her dreams. Especially those type. And if she ever dreams about any numbers, she better call me so I can play them in the state lotto. I'm thinking I need to drag her to Vegas one of these days.

Snagglepuss

2008-06-25T22:05:33Z

Does anybody remember this cartoon?

I remember watching it as a kid. One of the maintenance guys that works at my apartment complex spotted a mountain lion stalking through the dry creek that runs through the complex a few weeks ago. I've never encountered any while wandering around the hills, but did come across some tracks left by one when I was working up at the Masonic Home just down the street from where I live. Anywhere there's deer, there will be mountain lions, or pumas (my favorite name for them).

We've had a lot more sightings in the east bay in the last year or so, but nobody's been attacked like this guy. I imagine that it's coming. I just hope it's not my silly ass wandering around the hills one night after drinking too much. I don't want to get eaten by a puma. That would suck. A lot.

more cat pictures

Net Junkie

2008-06-23T15:19:57Z

The heatwave that hit the SF Bay Area at the end of last week wiped out my home PC. I didn't miss my internet fix over the weekend as much as I thought I might. I probably should've turned it off after it started acting funky Friday afternoon. I definitely should've turned it off after the first blackout hit. The two more that followed over the next twenty minutes were probably too much for the poor processor to handle.

I think the only data that I lost was a soft copy of The Cursed Glass of Count Marquez. Everything else I had on there was either backed up, or not really worth saving anyway.

"I am not your savior..."

2008-06-14T18:00:55Z

Fill 'er up II

2008-06-12T21:27:11Z

So the FDA is finally acknowledging that amalgam fillings might be harmful to some people.

I've blogged about this before.

Treasure Hunting

2008-06-09T16:12:19Z

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364471,00.html

The stuff Mel Fisher recovered from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha is most awesome.

He found a crucifix with skulls and crossbones on it.

It's not FAAAAAKE!

2008-06-08T20:48:28Z

A friend of mine scored free tickets to wrasslin' tonight.

My favorite driver was leading until the last pit stop.

Now to work on my beer belly so that when the cops show up I can take off my shirt, and run away from them.

EDIT: For clicky goodness.

jacesan @ 2008-06-07T12:58:00

2008-06-07T19:58:33Z

http://www.livejournal.com/update.bml

Tiny Dancing Robots

2008-06-05T15:55:31Z

http://news.duke.edu/2008/06/microrobots.html

Echo

2008-06-02T17:00:58Z

I read the first few issues of Terry Moore's new book, Echo. I like the Einstein quotes he put at the beginning of each issue. It looks to be an interesting story, and as skaldheim pointed out, his drawing has definitely gotten better.

I don't know if I'll get as attached to these characters as I did with Katchoo though. I will probably continue to collect them, while waiting for the SiP movie to come out.

Dungeons and Dragons

2008-06-02T15:29:54Z

I've been playing this game since I was about eleven, or twelve years old. Our original dungeon master (DM) was the son of an agoraphobic, and as a result was a bit of a recluse himself. We spent years adventuring in his campaign. I started playing with other groups of friends in junior high school, but also continued playing with the original group part way into high school.

I'm still learning the rules for third addition, or should I say three point five edition, since I didn't need to take ambidexterity as a feat for my new character. I've always been more comfortable playing thief characters, or rogues as they're now referred to. It's not hard to figure out why.

I probably could've used my tumble skill to NOT land on my ass when I got hit by the door that was flung open by the gnolls while I was listening at it, but may have been surprised and not able to land properly anyway. It's nice to be able to throw knives at people again though.