The sticky notes at the front of the page
for my 3 MPs (no, not my MP3s...)
Blogroll has moved to a
new page. It was just too huge (close to 1000 blogs in Bloglines) and helps the page load time tremendously. Blogrolling.com just sucks, and Bloglines has too much. Oh, and I have updated Blogrolling.
Have a nice day!
Saturday, April 30
How Geek I Am
Apparently, not too geekie.
Your Geek Profile: |
| Movie Geekiness: High |
| Internet Geekiness: Moderate |
| SciFi Geekiness: Moderate |
| Academic Geekiness: Low |
| Fashion Geekiness: Low |
| Gamer Geekiness: Low |
| General Geekiness: Low |
| Music Geekiness: Low |
| Geekiness in Love: None |
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/30/2005 06:19:00 PM 
0 comments
Friday, April 29
Cat blogging!
Here's Hairy!
He's reclining on the hope chest that The_Rose has in our entry way. This is his usual spot when I'm on the computer, if he isn't behind me in the computer room, or begging for me to scratch his head or give him some treats.
He is a stray that was dropped off in our cul-de-sac that we adopted, not that we needed a fourth cat, but since he was already neutered and declawed, we took him in. He was well trained by the owner before us, as he would only eat food off of a plate. If we left food on the floor, he would ignore it (at least until we were no longer in sight). We've got him broken of that habit, although the way he drools when he eats, I sometimes wonder if it wasn't better the other way around.
I seem to be his favorite subject. He complains very vocally when I get out of the shower. I think his previous owner may have suffered in a fall or something before. He is not a lap cat (none of our cats are), but he does seem to be the one that pesters me at least for the most attention. He is part Maine Coon, from the tufts of hair in his ears and on his feet. And his body, while not technically overweight, there's a lot of muscle there, is football shaped.
Enjoy!
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/29/2005 12:01:00 PM
0 comments
Thursday, April 28
CNN Spam
Micro Persuasion: Blogger Alleges CNN Trying to Lower His Google Rank:
Blogger Alleges CNN Trying to Lower His Google Rank
CNN has launched a sophisticated Google attack designed to lower the rank of posts critical of the network by introducing spam into the comment stream, one blogger alleges. The blogger, Nick Lewis, also tried to catch CNN in the act, according to The Inquirer web site...
Figuring that CNN was using technorati to monitor its campaign he posted a blog post with the words 'CNN' and 'Spam' in the title, and sure enough the next morning it got 13 hits from a technorati search. The IP address, from New York, has popped back to have a look several times since. He is convinced that there is some CNN plan to take over the blogs for its own purposes.
Somebody out there needs to do some real reporting on this. So far, there's a conspiracy brewing. It seems a little fishy to me, but you never know.
Bizarreness. Of course, I may never know what's going on. My comments seem to be broken (I haven't upgraded them to 2.2 from 2.0…), and my AWStats has been (permanently?) taken out of commission, not that they were in good shape after the server rebuild anyways. Sigh.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/28/2005 11:05:00 PM
0 comments
Defense Tech: ARMY PAYROLL = POLITICAL FOOTBALL
Defense Tech: ARMY PAYROLL = POLITICAL FOOTBALL:
If we're going to send hundreds of thousands of young men and women into harm's way, the least we could do is not fuck with their paychecks.
Interesting. Garfield was deployed overseas two weeks before Sparx was, although Garfield is actually 6 months ahead of Sparx. Garfield got all of his COLA and adjustments for being in Afghanistan as soon as he was there. Sparx is still waiting for his COLA to start showing up in his paycheck, hopefully at the end of this month. I really do think the Army is playing games with soldiers' pay checks. Another reason why Rummy has to go
IMNSHO.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/28/2005 12:51:00 PM
0 comments
Who owns who?
Grizelle has just cried at the front door to be let in (the back door is open for her to come and go as she pleases), and I let her in. She went to the cat tree where she scratched some, then decided she wanted me to let her back outside, through the front door.
Really. Just who is the "owner" in this case?
Updated 3/19/2008 to point to new archival site.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/28/2005 07:23:00 AM
0 comments
Sunday, April 24
Lyric Sunday
It's only taken me a month to get this out. Sheesh!
Like Toy Soldiers - Eminem
Step by step, heart to heart, left right left
We all fall down
[chorus-]
Step by step, heart to heart, left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
Bit by bit torn apart We never win
But the battle wages on for toy soldiers
mother fukin hoes
I'm supposed to be the soldier who never blows his composure
Even though I hold the weight of the whole world on my shoulders
I ain't never suppose to show it, my crew ain't supposed to know it
Even if it means goin' toe to toe with the Benzino it, don't matter
I never drag them in battles that I can handle, less I absolutely have to
I'm supposed to set an example, I need to be the leader,
My crew looks for me ta guide 'em
If some shit ever pop off I'm suppose to be beside ‘em
That Ja shit, I tried to squashed it, it was too late to stop it
There's a certain line, you just don't cross and he crossed it
I heard him say Hailie's name on a song and I just lost it
It was crazy, this shit went way beyond some Jay Z and Nas shit
And even though the battle was won, I feel like we lost it
I spent so much energy on it, honestly I'm exhausted
I'm so caught in it I almost feel like I'm the one who caused it
This ain't what I'm in hip-hop for, That's not why I got in it
That was never my object for someone to get killed
Why would I wanna destroy something I helped build
That' wasn't my intentions, my intentions were good
I went through my whole career with out ever mentioning (Suge)
And that' was just out of respect for not runnin' my mouth
And talking about something that I knew nothing about
Plus Dre told me stay out, this just wasn't my beef, So I did
I just fell back, watchin and grinnin my teeth, whil he's all over t.v.,
Down talkin' a man, who literally saved my live like fuck it
I understand, this is business and this shit just isn't none of my business
But still knowin' the shit could pop off at any minute cuz
[chorus]
There used to be a time when you could just say a rhyme
And wouldn't have to worry about one of your people dyin'
But now it's elevated cause once you put someone's kids in it
The Shit gets escalated, it ain't just words no more, is it?
It's a different ballgame you call names and you ain't just rapping
We actually tried to stop the 50 and Ja beef from happening
Me and Dre had sat with him, kicked it and had a chat with him
And asked him not to start , he wasn't gonna go after him
Until Ja started Yappin' in magazines how he stabbed him
Fuck it 50, smash him, mash on him and let him have it.
Meanwhile my attentions pulled in another direction
Some receptionist at the source who answers phones at his desk has an erection for me and thinks that I'll be his resurrection
Tries to blow the dust off his mic and make a new record
But now he's fucked the game up cause one of the ways I came up was through that publication, the same one that made me famous
Now the owner of it got a grudge against me for nothin'? Well fuck it
That motherfucker can get it too, fuck him then
But I'm so busy being pissed off, I don't stop to think
That we just inherited 50's beef with murder Inc.
And he's inherited mine, which is fine, ain't like either of us mind
But we still have soldiers that's on the front line Who's willing to die for us
As soon as we give the orders, never to extort us
Strictly to show they support us.
Maybe shout ‘em out in a rap or up in a chorus to show ‘em we love ‘em back
And to let ‘em know how important It is to have Runyon Avenue soldiers up in
our corners
Their loyalty to us is worth more than any award is
But I ain't trying to have none of me people hurt or murdered
It ain't worth it, I can't think of a perfecter way to word it
Then to just say that I love y'all too much to see the verdict
I'll walk away from it all ‘fore I let it go any further
But don't get it twisted, it's not a plea that I'm copinn‘
I'm just willing to be the bigger man
If y'all can quiet poppin‘ off at the jaws Well then I can
Cause frankly I'm sick of talkin'
I'm not gonna let someone else's coffin rest on my conscious...cause
[chorus]
| Toy Soldiers - Markita
Step by step
Heart to heart
Left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
It wasn't my intention to mislead you
It never should have been this way
What can I say
It's true I did extend the invitation
I never knew how long you'd stay
When you hear temptation call
It's your heart that takes, takes a fall
Won't you come out and play with me
CHORUS:
Step by step
Heart to heart
Left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
Bit by bit
Torn apart
We never win
But the battle wages on for toy soldiers
It's getting hard to wake up in the morning
My head is spinning constantly
How can it be
How could I be so blind to this addiction
If I don't stop the next one's gonna be me
Only emptiness remains
It replaces all, all the pain
Won't you come out and play with me
CHORUS |
Update: Helps when you spell the name correctly. Then again, I am prone to
misplet things.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/24/2005 11:02:00 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, April 19
The Beam in Your Eye - If steroids are cheating, why isn't LASIK? By William Saletan
The Beam in Your Eye - If steroids are cheating, why isn't LASIK? By William Saletan:
A month ago, Mark McGwire was hauled before a congressional hearing and lambasted as a cheater for using a legal, performance-enhancing steroid precursor when he broke baseball's single-season home run record.
A week ago, Tiger Woods was celebrated for winning golf's biggest tournament, the Masters, with the help of superior vision he acquired through laser surgery.
What's the difference?
What
is the difference.
Damn, I need to be making some money so I can get my LASIK (Laser Assisted In Situ Keratomeleusis (KER-uh-toh-mih-LOO-sis) a method of removing tissue from the centre of the optical zone in the cornea.) done. Yeah, they're not 20/500 like I am (or whatever the heck I am (I can't see the big E at the top of the chart without my glasses/contacts), so I guess I'll be real happy with 20/20 vision. But they are talking about 20/15 down to 20/10. Cool!
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/19/2005 02:08:00 PM
0 comments
Sunday, April 17
Happy Birthday Chuck!
Happy birthday lyrics struck out due to copyright problemsHappy birthday Chuck!!
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/17/2005 12:02:00 AM
0 comments
Friday, April 15
Meme of the day, for Tax day!
Meme of the day, for Tax day!HTTP in tha House
lyrics by: http://www.bytehead.org/blog/
a center
div class enter
nelson s weblog a div
alt hmmm border gt br pee
a div div class
sue me a div div crass
title add
imood cgi sad
target new the daily
archive php show id haley
org blog atom
href http censorware net target datum
a href http www
gif alt creating a quick
div div class boxedlight h
prompt window
WWW DOT BYTEHEAD DOT ORG IN THA HOUSE
WWW DOT BYTEHEAD DOT ORG IN THA HOUSE
WWW DOT BYTEHEAD DOT ORG IN THA HOUSE
WWW DOT BYTEHEAD DOT ORG
Interesting, bizzare, and fun!
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/15/2005 04:57:00 PM
0 comments
Thursday, April 14
Comments are busted
I don't know what's going on, but I can't leave a comment. Time to upgrade I guess. Sigh.
Update: And the comment snippets on the left can be broken by valid code in a comment. I guess I get to strip out all the HTML embedded in comments for that. I know PHP has a function for that. But I'm not going to think about that until I get upgraded. Time to see what version blogkomment is now at. 2.2, here I come!
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/14/2005 06:04:00 PM
0 comments
Possible replacements for Meetup
Upcoming.orgSuretomeet.comEvite.comevdb.comcraigslist.comSince I can't leave a frelling comment at the moment (boy does that frost me!), the following is about another site, not related to any site listed nor about meetup.com. It's just a personal note to remind me to write HTML code that is actually functional, and not rewrite in such a way as to make a total hash out of it. Although, thinking about it now, it's an implementation of rel="nofollow", I guess. Still
extremely stupid to do.
And why anybody would put a link into a javascript/mouse rollover is just beyond me. — me!
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/14/2005 02:44:00 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, April 13
Word of the day: irredentist
Google Search: define:irredentist:
Definitions of irredentist on the Web:
- an advocate of irredentism
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn - Irredentism is claiming a right to territories belonging to another state on the grounds of common ethnicity and/or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. The word was coined in Italy from the phrase Italia irredenta ('unredeemed Italy'). This originally referred to Austro-Hungarian rule over mostly or partly Italian-inhabited territories in the northern Adriatic such as Trentino and Trieste during the 19th and early 20th century.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irredentist
Word of the day—Remember it!
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/13/2005 10:20:00 PM
0 comments
Changes - Meetup.com
Changes - Meetup.comI'm flabbergasted. But not exactly speechless.
This was a pretty cool concept. Obviously, their MeetUp + just wasn't getting enough bucks in.
But $19?
Per month? What in the hell are they smoking? $19/yr, and I might donate to get/keep a group going here. Since obviously it's not $19 for just slashdot.meetup.com, but for every city that has one.
"small monthly Group Fee" my ass.
How was this decision made? We polled thousands of Organizers, met them in many cities, and listened to you online. We chose the path that keeps Meetup.com most focused on you.
No wonder they have been hounding me about becoming an Organizer. I mean, just WTF is in it for the Organizers now? $228/yr is a bit much, unless you've got some corporate or charity backing.
I think they've shot themselves, at least in the foot, if not fatally. The next template update will be missing any mention of meetup.com.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/13/2005 03:53:00 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, April 12
How to Disable Greasemonkey On Your Website
How to Disable Greasemonkey On Your Website:
To prevent Greasemonkey user scripts from executing on your web site, put this line within the HEAD of every page (IE users view source to see it):
<script type="text/javascript"> window.addEventListener = null; </script>
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/12/2005 04:52:00 AM
0 comments
Sunday, April 10
Have I stated lately how badly I hate computers?
Friday night, while chatting with El Coste, my computer spontaneously rebooted. I wasn't happy about that, but I really wasn't happy that my boot hard drive (which I already knew was not exactly healthy according to
S.M.A.R.T. according to
HDDLife, but I thought it was fine. But I've had two incidences (interestingly enough, now that I think about, after similar reboots…) where the health kept taking a hit. But now it was zero (how that was "defined", I have no idea), and the motherboard was even complaining about it at boot-up. It finally decided to boot, so I decided that I needed a new hard drive, pronto. Not really the best time for me to be spending the bucks, but I wasn't going for an upgrade.
I did a quick
froogle, and saw that the cheapest 80gigger was going to $45 plus shipping. I checked out
Best Buy, despite their idiocy on what is a good currency, and the smallest Maxtor was 160 gigs. The only 80gigger they had was a Western Digital for $90, which was ridiculous. The_Rose and I continued to window shop at various other places, and we ended up at
Office Depot, where I found an 80 gigger for $45, no rebate, sale ending that day. Cool.
I get it plugged into my system, install Partion Magic and find out that I can't reliable write to floppies with this system. It reads them fine, but writing is just hit/miss. My existing floppies are just aging too badly, so I opened up a new package of floppies, and worked with it on my other computer, which helped, but still had some weirdness.
I ended up running PM through Windows, and letting it do it's thing. Well, I screwed up what I wanted things to be (the new Drive C was ending up on a logical partition, not a primary partition, and that wouldn't have worked), so I stopped that in the middle, which had the MBR screwed up. Well, PM wouldn't touch it, so I thought I'd see what Windows would do, and Windows thought it would become a dynamic disk, so I thought that would fix things. No, PM then refused to touch it then (stupid PM!), so I ended up using MS-DOS 6.22 FDISK to reset that. Blowing away
the wrong drive! I finally got a boot disk with Partedit on it, that worked, and I was able to recover the blown drive, check it, then blew away the correct drive, and set PM up to do it's magic (correctly this time!), and got the disk the way I wanted it. In hindsight, I guess I should have let PM finish it's work, then let it reconvert that partition back to primary. I find it extremely odd that PM will copy a partion as a primary partion, and then proceed to change it to a logical volume. Strange. And extremely time consuming.
So, I get the old hard drive pulled out, put the new hard drive in it's place, and find out that the damn system won't power up!
The power supply seems to have gone flakey on me, but I'm not sure. I've tested it, and it would work sometimes, and otherwise not. Fiddling with the power cables, I finally get the system to power. But now, neither the motherboard controller, nor the Matrox 133 IDE adapter for the second hard drive are showing up in the POST. I played with the ribbon connectors to make sure they were good and tight, and although I never did dicern any movement of the connectors, the next time I booted, they showed. And the system booted just fine! It detected new hardware, now what that new hardware was, I have no idea, unless it felt the need to take the new hard drive and call it new hardware. Yeah, that must be it, since it does go my model number. Even though it's the same drive that was on the secondary IDE controller. Weird.
The old drive is a year out of warranty, so I guess I can't get a replacement for that.
I'm just glad I don't have to do a total reinstall from scratch. Although if I did, it probably would be with W2K3 Server, and set it up as a workstation.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/10/2005 10:47:00 AM
0 comments
Friday, April 8
Creating a quick Windows XP SP2 slipstream CD
Creating a quick Windows XP SP2 slipstream CD:
After installing Service Pack 2 (SP2), you may wonder what you should do if you decide to rebuild the system from scratch using a reformat-reinstall operation. In order to avoid having to reinstall SP2, you can create a quick Windows XP SP2 slipstream CD using your original XP CD, the network installation version of SP2, and a special command. Here's how:
1. Create two folders in the root directory on your hard disk: one called WXP-SP2 and the other called D-SP2.
2. Use drag-and-drop to copy the entire contents of the original XP CD to the WXP-SP2 folder.
3. Download the network installation version of SP2 and copy it to the D-SP2 folder.
4. Rename the WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe file to Wxpsp2.exe.
5. Open a command prompt window and at the prompt type CD \D-SP2 and press [Enter].
6. At the prompt, type Wxpsp2.exe /integrate:C:\WXP-SP2 and press [Enter].
7. When the extraction and integration operation is complete, you can use drag-and-drop to copy the entire contents of the C:\WXP-SP2 to your CD-RW drive and burn the files to a CD.
Note: This quick procedure doesn't create a bootable Windows XP SP2 slipstream CD. Creating a bootable CD is a more detailed operation that involves a shareware tool called IsoBuster and a full featured CD-ROM burning application such as those from Nero or Roxio.
Interesting.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/08/2005 04:54:00 AM
0 comments
broadband » Forums » Comcast HSI » [Connectivity] *****Fix for outage*****
broadband » Forums » Comcast HSI » [Connectivity] *****Fix for outage*****:
Here's a list from another topic (»http://209.123.109.175/forum/remark,9263803~mode=flat):
Verizon (Level3) Nameservers
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6
SpeakEasy Nameservers
66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2
ORSC Public Access DNS Nameservers
199.166.24.253
199.166.27.253
199.166.28.10
199.166.29.3
199.166.31.3
195.117.6.25
204.57.55.100
Sprintlink General DNS
204.117.214.10
199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10
Cisco
128.107.241.185
192.135.250.69
Also
Comcast - Other
68.42.244.5
68.42.244.6
68.62.160.5
68.62.160.6
68.87.96.3
68.87.96.4
68.87.66.196
68.87.64.196
68.57.32.5
68.57.32.6
Update:I found out why I wasn't having problems. I'm supposed to be using 68.87.64.196 (ns.inflow.pa.bo.comcast.net) and 68.87.66.196 (ns.cmc.co.denver.comcast.net), and instead, I was using (static coded) ns9.attbi.com and ns8.attbi.com.
host name : ns8.attbi.com
address : 216.148.227.79
host name : ns9.attbi.com
address : 204.127.202.19
Which evidently aren't going anywhere, they haven't disappeared yet! But I imagine one day, I'm going to find out that I can't get anywhere, and it'll be due to my hardcoded DNS! I fixed that by putting in a few more on my machine. I need to do the same to The_Roses machine.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/08/2005 04:44:00 AM
0 comments
Comcast DNS was down?
I seemed to have never been affected by it.
Oh well, here's some goodies
host name : ns1.attbi.com
address : 204.127.198.4
host name : ns2.attbi.com
address : 216.148.227.68
host name : ns5.attbi.com
address : 204.127.202.4
host name : ns6.attbi.com
address : 63.240.76.4
host name : ns7.attbi.com
address : 204.127.198.19
host name : ns8.attbi.com
address : 216.148.227.79
host name : ns9.attbi.com
address : 204.127.202.19
host name : ns11.attbi.com
address : 204.127.199.8
host name : ns12.attbi.com
address : 216.148.227.204
host name : ns13.attbi.com
address : 204.127.204.8
host name : ns14.attbi.com
address : 63.240.76.198
host name : vnsc-pri.sys.gtei.net
address : 4.2.2.1
host name : vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
address : 4.2.2.2
host name : vnsc-lc.sys.gtei.net
address : 4.2.2.3
host name : dns.core.com
dns.voyager.net
address : 209.153.128.4
Just in case I need to put in some other DNS address.
I'm currently on ns8.attbi.com and ns9.attbi.com as assigned by Comcast.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/08/2005 04:03:00 AM
0 comments
Blogger Buzz: No More Lost Posts!
Blogger Buzz: No More Lost Posts!
OK. Wow. I've lost one post out of about 800 or so. After that, I used a text editor first to make my entry if it was fairly long. I'm… underwhelmed I guess.
Maybe I'll see if I can't get my linkblog fully updated.
I'm still writing my own linkblog software. I've got a fairly good handle on PHP programming. I just have to figure out MySQL coding with it. I've got my tables lined up, as far as how I want them to work. I've got some basic logic laid out. I know I can get the logic working, hell, I've got it working with my email program. I just have to do a little more, like processing templates, and creating the atom.xml/rss.xml file(s). It shouldn't be horribly hard to get done. It'll be good for me to learn some SQL, and get into PHP a little more deeply (although I doubt I'll have to get in too deeply…)
Just getting the service a little more reliable might help people.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/08/2005 12:16:00 AM
0 comments
baltimoresun.com - A tale of customer service, justice and currency as funny as a $2 bill
baltimoresun.com - A tale of customer service, justice and currency as funny as a $2 bill:
PUT YOURSELF in Mike Bolesta's place. On the morning of Feb. 20, he buys a new radio-CD player for his 17-year-old son Christopher's car. He pays the $114 installation charge with 57 crisp new $2 bills, which, when last observed, were still considered legitimate currency in the United States proper. The $2 bills are Bolesta's idea of payment, and his little comic protest, too.
For this, Bolesta, Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours, finds himself under arrest.
Finds himself, in front of a store full of customers at the Best Buy on York Road in Lutherville, locked into handcuffs and leg irons.
Finds himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he's handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service is called into the case.
Have a nice day, Mike.
"Humiliating," the 57-year old Bolesta was saying now. "I am 6 feet 5 inches tall, and I felt like 8 inches high. To be handcuffed, to have all those people looking on, to be cuffed to a pole -- and to know you haven't done anything wrong. And me, with a brother, Joe, who spent 33 years on the city police force. It was humiliating."
What we have here, besides humiliation, is a sense of caution resulting in screw-ups all around.
"When I bought the stereo player," Bolesta explains, "the technician said it'd fit perfectly into my son's dashboard. But it didn't. So they called back and said they had another model that would fit perfectly, and it was cheaper. We got a $67 refund, which was fine. As long as it fit, that's all.
"So we go back and pay for it, and they tell us to go around front with our receipt and pick up the difference in the cost. I ask about installation charges. They said, 'No installation charge, because of the mix-up. Our mistake, no charge.' Swell.
"But then, the next day, I get a call at home. They're telling me, 'If you don't come in and pay the installation fee, we're calling the police.' Jeez, where did we go from them admitting a mistake to suddenly calling the police? So I say, 'Fine, I'll be in tomorrow.' But, overnight, I'm starting to steam a little. It's not the money -- it's the threat. So I thought, I'll count out a few $2 bills."
He has lots and lots of them.
With his Capital City Student Tours, he arranges class trips for school kids around the country traveling to large East Coast cities, including Baltimore. He's been doing this for the last 18 years. He makes all the arrangements: hotels, meals, entertainment. And it's part of his schtick that, when Bolesta hands out meal money to students, he does it in $2 bills, which he picks up from his regular bank, Sun Trust.
"The kids don't see that many $2 bills, so they think this is the greatest thing in the world," Bolesta says. "They don't want to spend 'em. They want to save 'em. I've been doing this since I started the company. So I'm thinking, 'I'll stage my little comic protest. I'll pay the $114 with $2 bills.'"
At Best Buy, they may have perceived the protest -- but did not sense the comic aspect of 57 $2 bills.
"I'm just here to pay the bill," Bolesta says he told a cashier. "She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money. Like she's doing me a favor."
He remembers the cashier marking each bill with a pen. Then other store personnel began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?"
"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender."
A Best Buy manager refused comment last week. But, according to a Baltimore County police arrest report, suspicions were roused when an employee noticed some smearing of ink. So the cops were called in. One officer noticed the bills ran in sequential order.
"I told them, 'I'm a tour operator. I've got thousands of these bills. I get them from my bank. You got a problem, call the bank,'" Bolesta says. "I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, he's standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.'
"Meanwhile, everybody's looking at me. I've lived here 18 years. I'm hoping my kids don't walk in and see this. And I'm saying, 'I can't believe you're doing this. I'm paying with legal American money.'"
Bolesta was then taken to the county police lockup in Cockeysville, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called in.
"At this point," he says, "I'm a mass murderer."
Finally, Secret Service agent Leigh Turner arrived, examined the bills and said they were legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear."
This will be important news to all concerned.
For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."
The other day, one of Bolesta's sons needed a few bucks. Bolesta pulled out his wallet and "whipped out a couple of $2 bills. But my son turned away. He said he doesn't want 'em any more."
He's seen where such money can lead.
Incredibily stupid. I would have slapped 114 SBAs on them instead.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/07/2005 02:17:00 PM
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Wednesday, April 6
Blogger's killing me
I'm trying to update my linkblog. It uses Blogger's email service to automatically post via email. Short, sweet and it usually works just fine.
But not today. I'm not getting any bounces either of email. Just about 1/3
rd of the links actually process and become part of the blog. And it seems to be getting worse.
I'd really like to try a different package, but since I don't have access to MySQL or anything like that with my current host, I'm pretty much screwed. I'd really like to come up with a database type CMS for my linkblog anyway.
Maybe I install PHP and MySQL on this machine, and create the linkblog here, and automagically update the host via FTP. Hmmmm.
Now, where is that PHP/MySQL/Apache installation file…
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/06/2005 09:12:00 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, April 5
To do
OK, this is evidently from ExpressionEngine. I've grabbed the graphics, and will upload them sometime, somewhere (probably not where they are pointed at now...)
I'm thinking that I use an
UltraEdit macro to convert from shorthand to image tag. Then, all I have to do is do a cut/paste, run macro, cut/past, and I'm done. Then I don't have to go through all the hassles of looking at my smiley page to just cut/paste the address for which one.
Of course, that means I need to be doing more than just recording keystroke macros. Sigh.
For further work:
Update: Done!
I even added a
for me.
:-)
:lol:
:cheese:
:)
;-)
:smirk:
:roll:
:-S
:wow:
:bug:
:-P
%-P
;-P
:P
:blank:
:long:
:ohh:
:grrr:
:gulp:
8-/
:down:
:red:
:sick:
:shut:
:-/
>:( (also :mad:)
:mad:
>:-( (also :angry:)
:angry:
:zip:
:kiss:
:ahhh:
:coolsmile:
:coolsmirk:
:coolgrin:
:coolhmm:
:coolmad:
:coolcheese:
:vampire:
:snake:
:exclaim:
:question:
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/grin.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="grin" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/lol.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="LOL" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/cheese.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="cheese" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/smile.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="smile" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/wink.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="wink" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/smirk.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="smirk" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/rolleyes.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="rolleyes" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/confused.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="confused" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/surprise.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="surprised" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/bigsurprise.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="big surprise" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/tongue_laugh.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="tongue laugh" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/tongue_rolleye.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="tongue rolleye" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/tongue_wink.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="tongue wink" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/rasberry.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="rasberry" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/blank.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="blank stare" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/longface.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="long face" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/ohh.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="ohh" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/grrr.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="grrr" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/gulp.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="gulp" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/ohoh.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="oh oh" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/downer.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="downer" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/embarrassed.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="red face" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/sick.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="sick" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/shuteye.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="shut eye" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/hmm.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="hmmm" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/mad.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="mad" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/angry.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="angry" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/zip.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="zipper" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/kiss.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="kiss" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/shock.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="shock" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/shade_smile.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="cool smile" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/shade_smirk.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="cool smirk" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/shade_grin.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="cool grin" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/shade_hmm.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="cool hmm" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/shade_mad.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="cool mad" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/shade_cheese.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="cool cheese" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/vampire.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="vampire" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/snake.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="snake" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/exclaim.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="excaim" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.bytehead.org/images/smileys/question.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="question" border="0" />
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/05/2005 06:11:00 PM
0 comments
Blah
I'm feeling sick. Not sure what's up with that.
Cat blogging.Hairy's feeling fairly sick right now. He's been throwing up clear liquid this morning.
The black and white stray cat that the daughter has adopted has been caught in the house 3 times by me today. Eating as much as he can out of the two cat food bowls. I need to get to the store and get more cat food, we're just about out.
Yesterday when I went out to the
post office and
OfficeMax, I found Kali by my car, and she took off as soon as she saw me. Or at least I so thought. Turned out she was actually stocking the 5 squirrels that were in the neighbor's yard, and that's when she made her run for it. One of the squirrels actually snuck around her, and made it up a tree by me. It was funny to see.
I need to get some batteries in the camera for some cat shots. I really need to get a picture of Hairy sleeping
on his back in my bed. I've never seen a cat sleep like that before. Dogs, yes. Cats? Then again, Hairy does seem to act like a dog half the time, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised I guess.
Kid bloggin'The two little ones are at each others' throats. Don't know what's going on there. I'm ready to throw both of them in bed and keep them there for a couple of days.
I got a call from Sparx at 2AM this morning. He's currently out in the field, playing shoot-up target for Special Operations field exercises. He's not real happy about that, I guess it still hurts when they get hit with the dummy bullets (especially the head shots). His debit card has gotten him into trouble, because the bank wasn't really sure what was going on when he got there and started to use his card. There's been some one dollar transactions (I have a feeling he just needs to lay off checking his account balance..), and who knows what else. He got it eaten yesterday, so Friday when he's back from exercises, he'll get that back from the bank.
Garfield also called today. He's bored. I was hearing a good echo of a delay about 1 second.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/05/2005 02:39:00 PM
0 comments
Can't keep a good man down.
Scoble's linkblog
Scoble has returned to linkblogging again, after swearing off of it. ;-)
He's at least slowing down so that it's not 100 entries per sip of the RSS feed like it had been (talk about your information overload...) But it's all good. I know I've added some blogs to Bloglines because of it.
My own RSS feed is getting close to 600, at which point I'm going to have to pare it down, probably down to around 400.
¿Information, ain't it lovely?
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 4/01/2005 11:33:00 AM
0 comments
♥ Sparx
♥ wookiemp164 aka Garfield116(x)
