The Jurassic Park Uniform

I FINALLY completed it. It has taken 4 months from conception to completion for the project to be finished, partly because I majorly changed some things. You see, the uniform in the movie was pink. However, I look awful in pink, so I went with a more logo-matching red. Also please note that my camera slightly screwed up the colors of this picture–in real-life, uniform is actually bright red, not orange-red like it looks in the picture. The hardest part of the uniform was finding the hat, although with enough searching I found an Amazon.com seller who is also selling the correct hats for the other two uniforms (blue for the pilot and green for the veterinarian). Here’s their shop in case you’re thinking of doing this project too (even if you go with a movie-correct pink shirt, the hat is still red so this item still works): Blank Khaki / Red Cap.

Also I took the liberty of editing out my name and face from the ID badge, so you’ll just have to take my word for it: I have cropped a picture of me into the badge and put my name under it.

Also, those Ray-Ban Aviators weren’t cheap.

State of My Life

It’s been a while since I posted, mainly because I’m taking community college courses (as I explained in my last post). So here’s an update on life, the universe, and everything:

College feels odd, but I’m doing fine in it–I should have the degree in time to find a job that’s actually decent.

Finding that last piece for my Jurassic Park costume is like trying to find a chicken with three heads. If you know of a place I can get a 2.5-inch Jurassic Park logo patch without paying $10 to get it flown here from Britain, I’m all ears.

I think I’ve worked out a formula for how quickly YouTube Poop videos drain your intelligence: {3 YTP’s:1 IQ point lost}.

Storm Chasers annoy me, mainly because when they flip on their amber flashing lights, they go all Rambo and fly past me on the highway at warp speed.

Dubstep still baffles me. When I first heard it, I thought my computer’s sound card had gone wonky. Then my friend informed me that it’s supposed to sound that way. Humph. The only use I can think of for dubstep is to scare my pet.

Obama’s State of the Union address didn’t have as much comedic value as Bush’s.

and finally, John de Lancie was confirmed to be attending the next BroNYcon. That man is genius, I tell you. He was amazing in Star Trek, amazing in Days of Our Lives, amazing in Invader ZIM, amazing in Assassin’s Creed, and he followed the trend by being amazing in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as the voice of Discord.

That ends this minor update. In the future, I’ll follow up on some of these things, and develop them into their own blog posts. Until next time, stay frosty.

Professional Hacker

It’s official: I’m back in school… community college, that is. The reason? I’ve decided to go for an Associate’s degree in information security.

For those of you with little knowledge of computer terminology, information security is a broad term encompassing a spectrum of careers, including computer forensics, malware analyzer, network security engineer, and system penetration tester. There is a large demand in this field, created by networks getting larger and more complex, and hackers getting smarter.

Part of the reason I wanted to do this is because an Associate’s degree is all that’s needed to break into the field, unlike other careers which can require advanced degrees (in the world of tech jobs, certifications for individual systems are more important than degrees).

But the biggest reason I want to do this is because it is something I enjoy. There’s that old saying, “Do something you love, and you will never work a day in your life.” Computers aren’t just a hobby of mine, they are a passion–a passion that I can turn into paychecks.

Bigfoot Strikes the Internet Again

I just spotted this advertisement on the interwebs:

I’m taking this to mean Animal Planet has officially run out of ideas for interesting new shows, so they’re just giving us… this. Let’s see how long before they air episodes of “compelling” new tooth fairy evidence.

Psychic WordPress App

I usually use the WordPress app on my iPad to do blogging, unless I need advanced coding or lots of copy / paste. However, I found this in the “Most Popular Posts” section of the stats window today:

I have no post called “Next Post.” This can only mean one thing: the WordPress app is psychic enough to predict how many people will view my next post, but not psychic enough to predict what the title will be. Also, I’m a bit unimpressed that it predicts only one viewer.

Oh well, maybe soon they’ll invent a coffee maker that is psychic enough to predict when I’ll get up, so that my morning coffee will always be ready for me to gulp down.

Welcome to 2012, We Hope You Enjoy Your Stay

Well, another year down the drain, and that means another year full of stuff I didn’t get done. I’m going to post a list here for my own benefit; a list of things, organized by importance, that I must get done this year.

#1 Defeat the crabgrass in my lawn – I’ve put this off as long as I could, but I think if I put it off any longer, crabgrass will actually make up the majority of my lawn. Time to start Armageddon against my crabgrass.

#2 Figure out how Adobe After Effects works – I’ve been using a copy of Adobe Premiere Pro that’s older than the Earth itself, so I think it’s time I upgrade. Problem is, Adobe After Effects has an intimidating learning curve and a ridiculous price tag. Premiere hasn’t aged well, though (I’m on version 2.0 which is 12 iterations behind the current version), so I think an upgrade is in order.

#3 Self-host this blog – WordPress is nice, but I want more control over this site–like the ability to change fonts–and I refuse to shell out for an upgrade pack. Once I get enough willpower mustered together, I’ll export the site to my home server and bask in the glory of the self-hosted blog.

#4 Fix that dodgy printer – In case you missed it, I blogged about it here. I refuse to be defeated by technology! I WILL work that thing out–if it kills me!

#5 Organize my shed – The storage shed outside my house looks like it was sodomized by a tornado. I’m slightly afraid to go into it, for fear that mutant creatures are lurking in those piles of rubbish. Time to get busy with a broom, a hose, and a Ghostbusters-style Ecto Catcher.

One thing you may have noticed about this list is that it doesn’t contain the usual “work out more,” “eat healthier,” or “recycle more.” That’s because this isn’t a new year’s resolution, it’s just a list of things that I’ve been neglecting for so long, that if I put them off any longer they will become major problems. If you have a similar list, drop me a link in the comments below–I’d love to hear about the stuff you’ve been putting off!

The Maniacal Printer

I want to feed this thing to the Sarlacc.

I recently inherited an old Kyocera printer / scanner / fax combo thing to replace my crappy HP Deskjet. Don’t ask for the Kyocera’s full name, because it’s something like “FS-1118-9000-Mfp_47b” (I think they just make those up off the top of their heads). Its features include:

- Random beeping and flashing buttons

- A scanner that makes documents look like smeared watercolors

- Sudden and unexpected whirring and clunking noises, to scare the crap out of me (it sounds like it needs an exorcist)

- Confuses the heck out of Windows 7 when I plug it in

- Creates ambiguous error messages like “MP load tray error – check paper spool drive.”

- Uses ink that costs as much as pure unobtainium

I’ve tried everything to make it work better: I replaced the toner, cleaned the scanner’s glass, re-installed the drivers, played it calming classical music–but nothing worked. Come to think of it, though: it would make an excellent target for the shooting range.

Trying to set up a multi-purpose printer makes me want to claw my eyeballs out.

Sorry for not ranting for a while, I’ve been working on some other projects that I’ll hopefully post pictures of soon. Until then, have some My Little Pony:

The Irony Mark

Something that is frequently lost in text-based communications (e.g. chats, texts, and even WordPress posts) is sarcasm; so unfortunately for everyone, your clever joke might be misinterpreted by the intended recipient and turn out horribly, horribly wrong. Therefore I propose we re-introduce a lost piece of punctuation: the irony mark.

The irony mark looks like this: ؟

Basically, it’s a backwards questions mark, and indicates sarcasm or irony. Wikipedia has some info about it:

“Although in the written English language there is no standard way to denote irony or sarcasm, several forms of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and frequently attested are the percontation point invented by English printer Henry Denham in the 1580s, and the irony mark, furthered by French poet Alcanter de Brahm in the 19th century.” — Wikipedia

So why isn’t this is common use? I mean, it’s standard Unicode–it wouldn’t take some kind of crazy codec to display it.

I suggest keyboard manufacturers replace the tilde key with a key for the irony mark. I mean seriously, I can’t even remember the last time I used the tilde key.

The Leaf Truck People

I live in a community where, every autumn, municipal workers come ’round with a vacuum truck and suck up all the leaves that people were too lazy to properly bag. I (and indeed the community in general) call these workers the “leaf truck people.”

Unfortunately, I also live in a community where the municipal workers are all second cousins, smell of smoke and beer, and still manage schedules on their Commodore 64s.

I had a fascinating phone conversation with one of them about when on earth the leaf truck people would be doing their job. Here’s the bit I remember. I can’t remember the lass’s name, so I’ll just call her Mayella.

me: Hello

Mayella: Who’s this?!

me: I’m a resident of this city. I’m curious as to when the municipal workers will be here to vacuum up the excess leaves that I wasn’t able to get around to bagging.

Mayella: So what do you want?

me: I want you to tell me when the leaf truck people will be ’round to suck up my leaves.

Mayella: Well, it’s not going to be any time soon, because Bob is on a hunting trip with Billy and they’re the only two people with keys to the leaf truck.

me: You mean to tell me that in the entire city, there are only two people with keys to that truck?

Mayella: Well Jim has a set too, but he’s home sick.

me: I see. You wouldn’t by any chance know when “Bob” or the other one will be back from their trip, do you?

Mayella: Nope, I don’t reckon they said anything to me.

me: Ah. Well then, thanks for your help.

Mayella: Uh-huh.

The conversation ended thusly. That whole exchange pretty much sums up the way things happen (or indeed, don’t happen) in the small town I live in.