October 2005 Archives

With my video obligations complete I can now get onto the entry that I promised a few days ago and have alluded to for a few months now. This really has been weighing heavy on my mind for quite some time at this point but I can no longer be silent about it. In fact if I hadn't agreed to do the video work for Phreaknic again this year I would have ducked out completely. In all reality this shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone since I stopped talking on the IRC channel about 4 months ago and have stayed away from the meetings since about that time as well. Over the last five years I have met many interesting people and heard a wide array of ideas and different perspectives on things. I have and will always appreciate and respect the difference in ideas inside this community and will miss some of the more lively debates. While this just seems like some type of cop-out excuse avoiding a problem, it really does seem to be the only viable solution.

Allow me to preface this with I am going to vent as much as I can about the events of the last seven months without naming names if all possible. People that know bits and pieces of the situation will be able to piece it together and for the rest of you, well just sit back and laugh or something.

Okay as promised the Saturday videos are now all online. Check them out at http://phreaknic.wilpig.org. As I stated before I have reviewed the drunken ddr video and cannot find any reason for it to not be public or to have it cut by more than half to just show the finals. Okay first of all, I don't mind blanking out audio or portions if there was indeed a private conversation going on that the mic might have picked up. But I will not remove large chunks of the video to cover up drunken antics. The file lock has been released.

The videos from Friday have been chopped up and posted at http://phreaknic.wilpig.org just like last year and are available to download. They are encoded with divx 5 at 640x480 and look pretty good. The Drunken DDR is currently locked until it has been submitted to a content review. I got a few complaints about it and was asked to remove it. I have listened to the audio and did not hear any of the content that was complained about. So unless someone can get me specific time segments where this audio can be heard I will be putting it back online tomorrow with the Saturday videos.

Phreaknic 9 is officially over now and I have alot to say on this one. I am currently working on chopping up the videos of the presentations, so it may take me a couple of days to get things in order.

Just a quick note from the con. I have full days worth of recordings done and they are converting to wmv now. I am going to have alot of editing to do when I get back on Sunday. Not really sure how to read some of the people here this year but then again I am also very preoccupied with my previous thoughts. I really wish Crystal could have come because I am not having a very good time and am feeling really low. This needs to change because I can't take much more rejection. Or at the least, perceived rejection.

Okay so here is what those pictures are. The top one is a trinket that I have tried to get for the last month and last night after this really long, weird run of Dire Maul north I got the Ace of Warlords to complete my deck. Now if the faire would just come back for me to turn it in and collect my prize.

The second picture is me and my new spider pet. To get this pet you have to run lower Blackrock Spire in a 5 man and collect spider eggs. I've had the quest for that going on three or four months at least and finally finished it to get my nifty pet.

Finally the last one is showing me after I went trick or treating in the game and got turned into a goblin. LOL The tooltip was broke and said I had a pirate costume on, but I was really a goblin. I did it again tonight and this time got turned into a cat that lasted for a few minutes.

Last in game news I am dropping like a stone in the PVP ranks. I have been busy with stuff and haven't played all that much to begin with and then when I have played I haven't been hitting the PVP very hard. Coming in with a whopping 5 kills this week I dropped 183 places in the standings.

Phreaknic starts tomorrow. I have to drive to Sikeston, MO first thing tomorrow then from there I will make the trip to Nashvegas. Crystal is definitely not going and because of phreaknic I will be missing my chance to see The Aristocrats at Maiden Alley. Chris said he wants to go see it also so I may try to hurry back on Sunday and I will try to catch the 7pm showing.

And finally... I have gotten a good bit of flak about my last post. If I depressed you, sorry. If I annoyed you, tough. I started this a few months back to get stuff out of my head and try to get things back under control. From time to time I will post something that is bothering me to help clear my thoughts. I guess that is it for now. I marked a really good song on my MyFi today to put on this entry but I left it out in the truck so I will just have to use it another time.

Explaination coming soon, heh.

Some of the things I have held in for a while now I let out tonight. Because of that I really just see myself like a lame horse that nobody wants to put down just push aside since it is easier. Never again will I let anyone in close to me because it just leads to pain and agony. Many situations in life can be so simple and yet spin out of control. I made the mistake of telling someone just how I really felt when I knew the feeling was not mutual, nor even on an adjoining page. It had to be said. If anyone knows what I am talking about, and a few people do, that has been the real cause of my sleeping problems. I haven't gone to see a doctor because I know they can't fix what is broken. No pill has been created yet that can fix this type of problem. Wait it out and hope for the best is all I can do, sadly.

I thought that if she at least knew what was going on it might make some difference, but I know better. So here I lay in a hotel in St Lous my slight buzz wearing off and 5 people sleeping around me. Here I lay and chat and type and think, always thinking. I do nothing but disappear and destroy any chances of anything ever happening. Heh, yeah right. If I tell myself that enough maybe it will become true and I can ignore the real truth that I never stood a chance in the first place.

Six Flags is done and I didn't hurl, the dramamine did it's job. I even rode on excalibur and the barrel thing that uses centrifical force to hold you to the walls. I rode pretty much all the roller coasters that everyone else did with the exception of the swings and shazam. Got me a turkey leg and caramel apple to bring back home, I am pleased. As an unexpected extra I managed to get a slight sunburn on my face. Computer geeks and sunlight rarely mix and when they do the results are typically painful.

I am going to have to redo this laptop before phreaknic on Thursday because something is up with my wireless. I keep losing connection and it seems to be the pcmcia port or the drivers. I am hoping drivers and a fresh windows install will fix it up because there really isn't anything I can do for a dying PCMCIA slot. Hope this posts before it goes out again.

Okay so to explain this picture. We left Draffenville at 6pm CST and headed north toward St Louis. We got to Mt Vernon, IL around 7:30 - 7:45 and stopped to eat dinner at Chilis. After dinner we head out to leave and Patrick realized he locked his keys in his truck and didn't have a spare anywhere. So I called AAA at 9:05 and was told they would have someone to us by 10:05... well that sucked but what else could we do but wait. So 10:05 rolls around and still no tow truck dude coming to open his door. I call AAA back and am told the driver got held up and will be a little longer, give him another 15 - 20 minutes. So now 10:35 has finally rolled around and Ricky's Towing pulls up. Ricky is nowhere to be seen but Dean gets out and starts to work on Patrick's truck. Thirty minutes later Patrick, Chris and Dean finally get Patrick's truck open. I sign the AAA paperwork and we are back on our way.

Once again AAA saves the day, but took forever in doing so. The address you can kinda make out in the photo and then the address of that chilis was 1544 Broadway. The tow truck was just a few blocks away from the chilis to start with and it took him an hour and a half to get there. That is fucking pathetic. Anyway, it's almost 2am and I need to get some sleep since they are wanting to get up at 7 in the morning to goto a park that is across the parking lot and doesn't open til 11. :P

Original Site

Okay so i'm sick and twisted and get a good laugh anytime I hear a reference to this. There is one in WoW where they replaced lotion with tannin and hose with mallet. I chuckle everytime I hear the ogre scream it out.

Well I have spent the morning futzing with SpamAssassin on Windows 2000 and Exchange 2003. And that walk through I had linked earlier was off on just a few points where the config files are concerned. SpamAssassin 3.0.3 has the system config files at \Perl\site\etc\mail\spamassassin and the rules directory at \Perl\site\share\spamassassin. But the good news is that now all my mail that comes into the office has the following in the header.

X-Spam-Flag: YES
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.3 (2005-04-27) Exchange SpamAssassin Sink (www.christopherlewis.com) 1.2.68 on jackinthebox.ics.local
X-Spam-Level: *****
X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=5.9 required=5.0

Like I mentioned before I am heading out of town this after to head up to St Louis for the weekend. I don't think the ramada we stay at has high speed internet so I probably won't post anything. I am going to take one of our backup dialup accounts just in case but no real promises.

Crystal told me today that she will most likely not being going to Phreaknic and that sucks. My outlook is declining quickly.

I know, SpamAssassin sucks but I don't have a much better choice for an exchange server. Using a loose rule set and then an outlook rule to check the spamassassin rating and if they are in the address book should help cut down on some of the spam my exchange users are seeing. Howto Exchange SMTP Sink

People that see this on livejournal have seen the moods and music choices I have embedded in these posts for a little while now. Well I finally got around to figuring out the code to make the show on here as well.

<MTIfNotEmpty var="EntryKeywords"><p><MTKeyValues source="[MTEntryKeywords]"><MTIfKeyExists key="mood"><b>Current Mood:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i><MTKeyValue key="mood"></i><br /></MTIfKeyExists><MTIfKeyExists key="music"><b>Current Music:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i><MTKeyValue key="music"></i><br /></MTIfKeyExists></MTKeyValues></p></MTIfNotEmpty>

And then of course there is the placement in the templates so that it generates that in all the places where it might be needed. Now my head hurts.

Lately I have heard alot of people tell me they are sorry for this and that. I really don't know who is actually sorry and who has just been trained to spit that word out because it is supposed to invoke some sense of sympathy. In my case I don't know what to think, all I can assume is the worst because that is just how my luck goes.

The Princess Bride aka,Robin Wright Penn, was also Jenny in Forrest Gump. At some point today I plan on putting the newer version of phpDVDprofiler into place which does some neat stuff with the actors section and showing the other DVDs that I have with that actor.

While I was working at the chemical plant yesterday I ran across this photo on one of the boards down in production. Photoshop at it's finest.

I just posted that little gem of humor and found that the size of the image mucked up my main blog page so I just set the browser to resize it to fit right. But... if you click it on my site it will pop up another window with the full version looking much better. Oh well good comedy ruined by technology.

Well this is a perfect example of why I don't buy many games anymore. I can't stop playing them until I have beaten them. This is night 2 of playing X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocolypse. It is definitely fun and I almost finished with Act 3 and wolverine is now powered up to the point where he is killing almost everything with just a few hits. Oh the carnage. Anyway enough of that. Clay sent me this link for one of these goofy quiz things so I took it and turns out it thinks I am some type of comedic idiot savant.

the Idiot Savant (33% dark, 57% spontaneous, 57% vulgar)

your humor style: VULGAR | SPONTANEOUS | LIGHT You like things silly, immediate, and, above all, outrageous. Ixne on the subtle word play, more testicles on fire, please. People like you are the most likely to RECEIVE internet forwards--and also the most likely to save them in a special folder entitled 'HOLY SHIT'. Because it's so easily appreciated, and often wacky and physical, your sense of humor never ceases to amuse your friends. Most realize that there's a sly intelligence and a knowing wink to your tastes. Your sense of humor could be called 'anti-pretentious'--but paradoxically enough, that indicates you're smarter than most. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Johnny Knoxville - Jimmy Kimmel The 3-Variable Funny Test! - it rules - If you're interested, try my latest: The Terrorism Test

I am in the office today so I finally got a few minutes to sit down and figure out why phpDVDprofiler wasn't working with Fedora Core 4. With the help of changing a few php options in the .htaccess file it is once again working! Give it a look to see what odd tastes I have in movies. phpDVDprofiler

Well the first attempt I made at Molten Core with Grinders Inc went about like I thought, pitiful. About 10 complete wipes and 12 gold or so and nothing was accomplished. But thanks to a druid buff and a greater stoneskin pot I got my armor to almost 11,000. That was pretty cool indeed. I would show the complete screenshot but the massive about of bodies around me was pretty brutal.

Well I have recovered as much as I can recover I thought I had more but it looks like i am missing three entries. Two from 2005-10-03 and one from 2005-10-05. I know the titles of two of them were "Stupid People" and "Serenity" but I don't know what was in them. This stinks. Basically the stuff from earlier this week, since I last did a backup. All my sql files are officially gone and I have to go about rebuilding gallery from scratch. I have all the photos I think but the permissions are all gone as are all the comments and the captions. I am really bummed by all this mess. But I am learning a lesson from this and am in the process of redoing my backup strategy to be a little more flexible and be a little more obvious if it isn't backing right.

Hopefully this posts to blog.wilpig.org and livejournal and the rebuild can continue. Okay this is working. Now for the explaination. Last night as I was putting in the latest bit of rambling I got some weird error about my file system being read only. Well I figured a quick reboot and an fsck would fix it up. I couldn't be more wrong. Well after a few hours of fighting it trying to get it to repair I finally just had to give up and rebuild and restore from my backup. Well to my horror my backup is incomplete. So I have completely lost my gallery and the greater part of my blog. I did find a copy of the database from a month ago when I did the 3.2 upgrade and I am in the process of putting the entries back in now.

Like I said I have been on the road alot this week and have gathered together some weird bits along the way. Some of the links might be not safe for work so click with caution. After looking at all of this typed out I am gonna have to put some of it in the extended section so you actually have to click it to see all my ramblings this time. But there is some good stuff in it.

First off halloween is nearly here and that means haunted houses. Always cheesey, rarely scarey but usually a good time. I am seeing signs for them all over the place. There is a haunted farm with a corn maize, yes i know, over in southeast missouri and this one called The Ironbanks Hotel in columbus. I'm sure the haunted trail will be coming to the fair grounds here in murray soon enough as well as the haunted houses done by various groups in the area. This weekend starts Fright Fest at six flags everywhere, I think. I am going to St Louis next weekend with Chris, Christina, Zach, Stevie and Patrick next weekend for a little fun. The boy is in for a scare and I will laugh and laugh. Of course I will do my best to scare the crap out of him as well, HA!

I've been listening to the radio alot, as usual and jotted down a few quick notes from Opie and Anthony.

• What day wouldn't be complete without a flaming homosexual in a blue bunny costume? Meet Scotty the blue bunny
• Gary Hoey absolutely freakin' rocks!
• Kelly Monaco is still hot.
• The quickest way to forget about how hot Kelly Monaco is, is to click on this site. Thanks Opie you bastard.
• And line of the day goes to Susie Essman, at least I am pretty sure it was her who said it. "It"s that your girlfriend is so young that after sex all she wants to do is color". Hey, I found it funny.