Yikes.

Toto, we're not in college anymore. I'm in that dreadful last hour of an all-nighter and my body is screaming at me to surrender. At this point, sleep would do more harm than good, so I need to just gut it out and enjoy my breakfast.

Good thing I get to rest tomorrow. As long as you call packing up everything I own and moving out restful. :)

Andy Frank

This is absolutely crazy. 21 years ago Sadaam Hussein placed a price on Jawad Amir's ahead. The man, terrified for his life, fled to his parents' house, where he hid between the walls ... for the past two decades. Only a radio and a peephole have kept him company this whole time (he never emerged). Now, at 49, he finally feels free to live a normal life.

That's just incomprehensible to me. How could he possibly maintain his sanity?

A Happy Family, Eh?

From Relevant:

Ever wonder how the U.S. military is getting Saddam Hussein supporters to cough up valuable information? They're playing them heavy metal music and children's songs. According to a U.S. sergeant interviewed by Newsweek magazine, Iraqi prisoners have never before heard the crashing rhythms, churning guitars and growling vocals common in metal, and it affects them like Chinese water torture. Songs of choice include Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and Drowning Pool's "Bodies." Also effective is the chirpy, sing-song quality of kiddy tunes, specifically the theme to "Sesame Street" and the music of Barney ...

And all this time they thought we were making it up ...

The Most Unpredictable Is Love.

Seen The Matrix: Reloaded? Confused by the Architect scene? You can read it s..l..o..w..l..y here.

My Prayer

Lord, I ask for your guidance and peace. I feel like Woody in Toy Story when he was dropped into that vending machine and was attacked by little green alien toys with three eyes on their heads. Well, sorta like that. People and projects are reaching out to me with zombie-like requests, droning on about what I need to accomplish and how I need to perform. School, camp, the video, moving out, it's all converging. I'm trying to remember to cautiously seek You before each step rather than frantically throw myself into the craziness.

Please grant me wisdom and patence. Allow me to freely sacrifice those things that are distracting me from your purposes. Purge me of my selfish desires. Place your fingerprints before me in an unmistakable manner, that I may see your handiwork and understand your doings.

Your servant Martin Luther once said, "If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business, I cannot go on without spending two or three hours daily in prayer." Although I don't completely understand this, I desire to adopt that sort of choices.

Please remind me of who you are. I love and adore you.

yours,
lance

TypePad

I can see it now. Forget MT ... I'll probably be migrating this blog to TypePad. It doesn't even exist yet, but from the descriptions and screenshots I just saw it seems like it's going to be a good bet. I'm a little leary about associated costs, but the features might make it worth it.

Just a thought.

The Living Anachronism Needs You.

After thoroughly exausting every hidden angle in the ever-consequencial Pocket Question, Michael Dunfee needs your assistance.

Remember, this is the man who singlehandedly works for the US Census Bureau, once took a college class called "Combinatorics", and has been moonlighting for 15 years as the Purchasing Agent and Assembly Department Head of one of the legendary giants in the Sawmill and Pallet Industry.

And now he needs your help. Please take a moment to answer him.

iLoo TP

37,480 pounds (or 3 million pages in 937 boxes) of internal M$ documents seized during the various antitrust lawsuits hurled in their general direction in the past few years are finally destined for the shredder. According to Cathy Keech, facility manager for the place that's been holding the documents, 99% of the shreddings will be used for toilet paper.

How simultaneously useful and ironic. Will this company ever stop producing fodder for our amusement? And what, exactly, amounted from all the evidence against their anti-competitive practices?

[hint: see the title]

-- via atat

Famous Resumes

During the past two weeks my eighth grade students have been working on a project I call "Famous Resumes." It's quite simple ... each student picks a famous person (actor, musician, politician, athlete, etc) and thinks of a job for their person to apply for. They then create an objective for their person and gather information about his/her summary of qualifications, work experience, education, community activities, references, and awards received. Finally, all of that information is entered into Microsoft Word's Resume Wizard to create a semi-professional-looking resume.

The students are quite creative ... Maya Angelou as an English teacher at CHCA, Peyton Manning as the Governor of Indiana, Norah Jones as a McDonald's cash register operator, Albert Einstein as a shoe salesman, Jim Carrey as the number reader for Friday Night Bingo at a retirement home, Ron Artest as an Anger Management Counselor, Ashton Kutcher as the person who sweeps Cheerio dust (again) at the General Mills Factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Today I found an interesting article [via bb] about how some large corporations, especially tech-related companies, are using machines and robots to sort through submitted resumes and screen applicants for jobs. These machines save a lot of money and hassle by trying to find key words and qualifications in each resume to pre-qualify the applicant as a possibility for a job opening (before a human person even glances at the application or resume itself).

This isn't suprising, in this day and age where only the military seems to be actively looking for quality employees. What suprised me, however, is the list of suggestions that the author had for fooling the HR Bots. Here's how they say to trick the "application management" software to put your resume at the top of the pile:

1. Lift key phrases from the job listing on the website and put them in your resume. Also be sure to use them when filling out online questionnaires.

2. Be sure to mention your critical job skills early and often. That way, your key selling points are read by the HR software as both recent and frequent experience.

3. When the site asks if you were told about the opening by a company employee, always check yes. It's a little white lie that can give you a big leg up.

4. HR software can be programmed to favor local applicants, so if you're applying for an out-of-town job, use a friend's address or rent a post-office box.

5. The best way to beat the bots is to circumvent them. If you see a job listing that intrigues you, log off, pick up the phone, and network like mad to find a back channel.

I understand numbers 1, 2, and 5. In fact, I put these into practice all over the place (in college essays, projects for school and camp, and even shopping). Number 4 is just plain smart but a little extreme ... number 3, however, is the one that really caught me off-guard. Telling a "little white lie" to get a leg up? What's up with that? Is it o.k. to tell a falsehood to a computer? Would you really want to start out your relationship with a new job with something like that? What if they ask you who you know at the interview?

Ashton could probably pull it off as long as the HR Bots don't filter out applications with multiple repetitions of the word "dude." But I don't think it would work for Maya, Jim, or even Nora.

And Albert's dead, dude.

Just Barely.

It's official. PVM Counselors make better money than Colorado prisoners.

Joke of the Day

Q: What do you get when you cross a road with a bike?

A: To the other side

I Make Bathtime So Much Fun.

... And Then.

Wow, that last post actually might have worked. Traffic on my website was at 1/3 of normal this weekend. That's awesome ... I'm thoroughly convinced that we spend entirely too much time on the electric drug. If I end up being the only person that visits webeldotnet because y'all are out investing in people, I'd be a happy camper. A happy hypocritical camper, that is (because I'd still be here despite my admonitions).

As an update, the bombing in Casablanca left all of my friends physically unscathed ... but I would imagine that their lifestyle may change quite a bit these next few weeks. Morocco has enjoyed a relatively peaceful climate for the past decade, even though they're a muslim nation with a generally positive relationship with the U.S. But now they have become victims of terrorism ... and from what I've read, they weren't expecting it. If you're of the praying type, they'd covet your support.

I drove up to camp Friday night late to wake up for our Yonker Slam Jam (a big youth rally). We purchased equipment for a speedball (fast high-intensity paintball) course, got a DJ, had a band come out, rented bouncy boxing and an obstacle course, broke out the basketball and orbitron, had some refreshments, gave away 100 tshirts, and had some high school SLAM mentors talk to the junior high kids. It rained and poured and tried to ruin our party, but the fun was still had.

Wicker and I left midway through the Slam Jam to head to Adam and Brittany's wedding ... an enjoyable affair. I was surprised at how intimate the thing was, and actually enjoyed having meaningful conversations with quite a few people that I haven't seen in a while. We're all growing up, that's for sure. Pretty soon I'm going to be the one getting married. That'll be the day.

In other news, I'm still up to my neck in scanning photos for this graduation video. It's absolutely ridiculous ... there are entirely too many still photos (hundreds and hundreds), to the point that none of them are going to look good. I don't think these parents understand how short middle school attention spans are. A 45 minute slideshow is just boring, no matter how creative you try to be.

Hence, I have lost almost all of my desire to do anything creative with the video. I don't care so much how bad the photos are anymore (and yes, some of them are) ... I'm just to the point where I want to get the thing done. And that makes me sad ... now I feel like I've sold out, like I've entered a potentially creative endeavor and just gone at it halfway, simply because I haven't been able to pour enough of my own creativity into the project. But that's the way it is for this particular project, and I must accept that. In the future, however, I'm going to think long and hard before I agree to anything creative for someone else (even if I'm being paid) unless if I have full control over the project. I know that sounds awful, but the artist-of-sorts in me is torn apart from the decision to compromise creativity.

Or perhaps it's just that I love these kids. They've inspired me and taught me so much these past two years, and I want to give them a gift that's beautiful and worthy. This project is just too close to my heart.

Or maybe I'm just sick of scanning. Yeah, that's probably it.

Now.

The city that almost became my home was just bombed. At least 20 people are dead, "body parts are everywhere," Al-Qaeda is suspected, people are hiding in their homes, and the targets were mainly Jewish and tourist centers.

I want to be close to reality, close to places where life matters because death is an actual possibility. Enough of this bland prepackaged pasteurized self-rospected lifestyle. Why do the plagues have to be hidden? Why is our idolatry and adultery labeled "culture?" Where are our prophets?

People are dying, and some of them might even be my friends. That's reality. But do you really care? I mean, do you really care?

Prove it.
Do something (impossible).
Go somewhere (else).
Purge yourself (completely).
Give something (important) away.
Live what you say you believe.
Apologize.

And stop wasting so much time reading my website, for crying out loud. Someone in the next room needs to talk to you about something real and important, but you've gotta suck it up and start the conversation.

(now).

Total Eclipse of the Moon

There's a total lunar eclipse tonight. That means that the earth will be blocking all of the sunlight shining on the moon so you won't be able to see it (and it will do a nice orange-red-brown fade). If you're up between 11:14 and 12:07 (EDT) then check it out. Get the details (and other time zone info) here.

By the way, it's really cool to walk around singing Total Eclipse of the Heart in a high falsetto voice, especially if you're a guy. Go ahead ... click here and try it. You know you want to, child. Don't act like you're too cool. Nobody's too cool for falsetto Bonnie Tyler.

Caught With Their Pants Down

On Monday I reported that Microsoft has been developing a porta-potty with built-in Internet access. Then yesterday I heard on NPR that M$ changed their story, claiming that the iLoo story was simply a hoax perpetrated by their british division. Of course, I didn't buy it ... last night in my own comments I challenged their claim. I'll quote myself:

"I think not. They saw how much negative press they had received and decided to cut the project (trying to spin it off as a bunch of fun-loving prank-pulling british geeks). I don't buy it ... you don't announce something through MSN and an official press release (in an already red-tape-riddled company) when it's a frathouse prank."

This morning as I awoke to NPR once again, they reported that M$ has changed their tune yet another time. Now they're claiming that the original story was true and that the iLoo project was simply cancelled (exactly as I said in my comments).

Not only that, but M$ has taken down their iLoo press release and their M$NBC story. Since when does a journalistic enterprise censor their own stories days later to sway public opinion and better their own image? Shame on you, NBC. You need to get your lunch money back. Let me quote myself again:

Can't they just be honest with us, for once?

There's only one possibility here ... Someone at Microsoft is reading my blog. Their immediate response to my post last night was to fess up (thanks, Bill). I'll keep this in mind, Redmond ... being a watchdog for the world's largest world domination [ooops] software company should be able to fit into my schedule somewhere.

The Weekday Update

This blog has been one of my lowest priorities (scoring just under sleep and just above sanity) this past week, so I promised myself that I'd take the next 15 minutes to post some things that have been going on with me.

Actually, I'm on the pot, so I'm stuck here anyways. The joy of wireless Internet access. :)

Where should I start? I'll go reverse-chronologically. I just got off work at Apple ... I'll only be there two more days this next week, then I'm basically off for the summer (one shift per month, I think). While at work today, I ordered a new 15 gig iPod! I'm so pumped ... the thing is incredible, and I just found out that the dock has an audio-out port on it! So I can leave it hooked up to my stereo and just pop the iPod in the dock to pump the music through! How sweet is that? And I also sold the old 5 gig one on eBay (for more than I paid for it), so I'm good to go. Oh, one more Apple-related thing ... there was a chance that I was going to get flown out to Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, California this past weekend to work on an upcoming program for Apple Retail. Plans fell through, though, and we're doing the work remotely instead. Bummer.

Today I got really sick of having 50+ Gateway boxes piled up in my lab (we still have 24 new computers to install this summer), so I had a group of 7th graders get creative with it. We ended up coming up with the Central Processing Unit ... a lounge-of-sorts within the computer lab. It's complete with arched doorway, couches and chairs, a coffee table, a fishtank, and vaulted ceilings. It's quality stuff, I tell ya. Stuff that drives adults absolutely crazy. But the kids'll love it.

I've also been working really hard on the 8th Grade Graduation Video. I spent about 25-30 hours at school this weekend scanning, editing, and assembling pictures and video, and I'm only halfway done. Video work is fun, but extremely tedious when you do a good job (and I've learned to ask for the compensation that makes it worth it). I hope it turns out well ...

Camp stuff is flying along ... counselors start arriving on the 28th, in a little over 2 weeks! We've still got quite a bit of projects to complete (the zipline, staff manuals, the set, my home, devotionals, etc), but I'm confident that we'll get it all done in time. In God's time, at least. We have such an incredible staff this summer ... talented and passionate college students from across the nation. I can tell already that they're ready to get down and serve, to invest in people and pour their hearts out for the Kingdom. I'm excited to see how the group dynamics go those first couple of weeks (a very interesting study in human behavior, I say) ... and I'm ready to just get back out to that lifestyle for a few months. Bring it on.

Now for the random paragraph. In the past week, I ... went to a free Reds game last week and got great Montgomery Inn ribs ... packed up all my dishes but one of everything so I'm forced to wash my dishes every time I use them ... had a great idea for a future search engine (I'll post it sometime) ... received one of the best (inadvertant) compliments I've ever received before ... realized that the finger I smashed in a paintball gun a month ago might need to be drilled and drained of blood ... found a home for most of my furniture this summer (thanks Annie and Katie!) ... cleaned out my fishtank ... went to an all-night (11pm to 7am) social last weekend with 250 middleschoolers in a YMCA ... played piano for the first time in many months ... and had both my legs fall asleep while typing a blog entry.

Which means it's time to flush. Standing up should be interesting ...

When They Were Littler

I�ve spent the last couple of days scanning and editing pictures of my students for the 8th Grade Graduation Video. I�ve been hired the past couple years to compile this visual memory, a great gift that the parents put together for their children. The first portion of the video shows each student when he/she was little then shows the current eighth grade picture right next to it (hence the heavy scanning).

It�s been a while since I�ve laughed on my own this hard. Some of these kids were just so incredibly cute (what happened?). And some of the pictures are just precious ... angry and confused faces, chubby cheeks, and embarrassing clothes. And on the current pictures, it�s funny to see how many students went to the same studio and got pictures taken in front of the same background, especially when it�s supposed to look like a natural picture outside or something. What a coincidence!

But I�m amazed at how many parents sent in bad photos. Several printed out digital pictures on plain paper (with pretty bad printers) while others had their kids with their eyes closed or frowning or something. I did my best to digitally fix the pictures (taking out acne and injuries and distracting objects, fixing levels and color balance, etc), but there just wasn�t anything I could do with some of the photos. Sorry guys, I tried.

All in all, it reminds me of a site I saw last week ... When I Was Little. Funny stuff ... even when you don�t know the people that post their pics!

324 Pixels of Pure Bliss

As you've noticed, posts have been rather scarce the past few days. Tomorrow I'll probably do a chronology of the past week ... it's been an adventurous one, but unfortunately that means I've been swamped. I haven't even answered most of my emails (sorry). Don't take it personally.

For now, you can waste hours of valuable time on the self-proclaimed world's smallest website. It features Pong, Asteroids, PacMan, Outbreak, TicTacToe, Football, The Game of Life, Pinball, Simon, F1 Racing Game, Maze, Space Invaders, Drum Kit, Piano, Fruit Machine, and Arena ... all within an 18x18 pixel square. Amazing ... simply amazing.

Unless if you have great resolution on your monitor ... then it's just simply tiny.

[dibs to danielle]

My Tongue Is Bitten.

Sometimes a story surfaces that elicits way too many possible headlines. Way too many jokes. At these sacred and storied moments, it's usually best to incredulously sit back and nonchelantly deliver the news. So I will.

Microsoft has created a porta-potty with built-in Internet access. Really, it's not a joke ... they're calling it the iLoo. That last article was on M$NBC (a pretty reliable source for M$ news). If you're still not convinced, here's M$'s own press release.

You need to read that press release. It's full of goodies. Like the fact that they're trying "to create a unique experience for surfers looking for an alternative to the bog-standard festival loo experience." Or their assertion that "MSN is also in talks with toilet paper manufacturers to produce special web paper for those in need of URL inspiration." But if you're thinking about walking off with the "six channel surround sound speaker system under the sink," you'll want to watch out for the guard who will be posted outside the iLoo.

Again, I'm refraining from making bad jokes or insiduous headlines. I'm really refraining. I'm refraining so much that it hurts. I just hope they rethink the wireless keyboard idea (how nasty) and move towards voice activation instead.

Swastika-Cola

"A Coca-Cola promotion in Hong Kong features a robot adorned with 'swastikas' ..."

Child's-Eye-View

The Winds of Change

I've officially created a bio page and listed my first item ever on eBay. Woah. I'd better sit down.

Blog Poetry

From Rob's Amazing Poem Generator:

Saturday, May 03, 2003
The bride, I jumped at 9:
if that on. the most
PC users work
on this post
Tuesday, and actually
contain technology in Kentucky,
but somehow soothing
to the hot tub a
shopping you go to swipe
to take because they
have a comment on the 2.43 PM by lance
Add a Hypermarket as
they call it
to swipe to make it really [
matter? Blair, best
wishes on the awesome new iPods.

Personalized Plates

The Ohio Department of Transportation has a website where you can check the availability of personalized license plates. I would've gotten one for Louie (my car) if you didn't have to renew them for $35 per year. Regardless, it's kind of cool to go to the website and type in fun things to see them on the license plates. Here are the leaders on my own list:



Which would you vote for? What would you put on your plates?

Drive-by Blogging

Here's something fun to do:

I'd estimate that 2-4 posts are made to people's blogs through Blogger every second. Blogger publishes a continually updated list of posts to public blogs.

It's really fun to go to that list, click on the most recent posts, and leave them extremely quick comments. Sometimes you can even catch the authors reading their own page after posting and have a conversation with them through their comments.

Then again, sometimes it probably freaks them out too. Bonus!

Another Geeky Post

At the event last night at Apple, we noticed something really spiffy about the new iPods. When you go into diagnostic mode ("behind the Apple," so to speak), you can see all of the ways to troubleshoot and fix iPods. One of the options in there shows that the new iPods are capable of recording audio as well (even though Apple hasn't yet announced this or released hardware to support it). In fact, you can pick up an iPod, go into diagnostic mode, and talk into the headphones to record audio right now.

I was wondering how long it would take for the general public to figure this out ... and it only took one day. Now I'm just curious to see the awesome new applications that this capability presents (think digital recorder, mixing software, computerless jukebox, etc). There are 32 pins on the new dock connector ...

In other news, the iTunes Music Store had over 275,000 songs downloaded in its first 18 hours of operation (with Apple's mere 4% market share). Hmm ... this may be a good sign for the music industry. It'll be interesting to see how this all develops ...

Let me rant for a sec about that supposed 4% market share ... I would argue that at least 10-15% of computers actually being used out there in the world today are Apples (and maybe even more than that). Of course more PC's are sold each year ... Mac users don't need to buy a new machine every year because theirs retain their value (eBay is proof of that), keep working smoothly (OSX is proof of that), and actually contain technology that's ahead of the curve (need I explain?). But from what I've discovered, most PC users replace their machines every 1-2 years, while many Mac users work on systems that are at least 5-10 years old. Why doesn't anybody ever take that fact into consideration?

Valedictatorship

or Empress-ionable Young Mind

Blair Hornstine, a girl with a 1570 out of 1600 on her SAT and offers from Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Princeton, and Cornell, is sueing her school, Moorestown High School, because they have named her co-valedictorian instead of valedictorian. Blair doesn't have to take phys-ed because of health reasons, so her GPA turned out higher than other students with perfect grades (who were forced to take the GPA-lowering phys-ed classes).

Worse, she's the daughter of a state Superior Court judge. One of her parents actually presides in a court of law (he must really know the "Justice" System). Can it really be true? Hey, she's been "humiliated", so just go ahead and give her the 2.7 million dollars. Does it really matter?

Blair, best wishes on a life of eternal significance. You're [cough] on the right track [cough]. It really [cough] impresses other people and gives you a lot of authority and influence when you [cough] make choices like this. Wow, that [cough] impressive resume really shows that you're an inspirational and intelligent young lady. It's good to know that we're [cough] breeding the future leaders of the world here in America [hacking cough].

I just have one request ... please don't send your kids to my school. I don't have a spare million to dish out because they don't want to tuck in their shirts.

The Definition of Tough

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

"[Aron] Ralston was hiking Saturday when he became pinned by the [1,000 pound] boulder. He ran out of water on Tuesday and on Thursday morning, he decided that his survival required drastic action. Using a pocketknife, Ralston cut off his right arm below the elbow and applied a tourniquet and administered first aid. He then rigged anchors, fixed a rope and rappelled 60 feet to the canyon floor.

...

Ralston described to them what he had done and that he was "obviously tired." His only request was water. The rescuers tried to keep Ralston awake for the 12-minute flight to the hospital in Moab, Utah, by talking to him. He walked into the emergency room on his own."