I Demand the Best!
posted on june 25, 2002, tags: entertainment
If you haven't been watching American Idol on Fox, then you've been missing out. Don't get me wrong—I hate to admit it when I like stuff like this. But trust me, it's terrific. It's too bad, however, if you haven't been watching it, because you've missed some really funny stuff. There's something about watching a douchebag from Nowheretown, USA sing like absolute garbage and hearing a british man say, "That was pathetic." It's terrific.
I keep forgetting to mention that we saw Minority Report the other night. Very beautiful imagery and an equally interesting story and plot. There were a few times that I felt the unnecessary use of a comedic gag got to be too much, but more often than not it was well worth seeing. Besides, I don't think there will ever be a time when I refuse to see a Spielberg film. Although, I am a little upset about a few shots in the film. I think at this point, one of Spielberg's movies should be absolutely flawless. When I see an effects shot that isn't quite perfect, I get angry. He should accept nothing but perfection. If a guy at ILM said, "This is as good as we can do," he has the right to start shouting, "I directed Saving Private Ryan! I am Steven Spielberg! I will take nothing but the best, damn it! Have you seen the The Color Purple?!" Just my thoughts.
Steve (Ellison, not Spielberg) and I have taken the last few days off from working at the company that recently fell apart. It's been nice to have time to do things I've been needing to do, as well rekindle my love of StarCraft. I can't get enough of that game now. I'm dying to play it right now. I'm sick!
Messy
posted on june 20, 2002, tags: work
Things did get messy at work. But not exactly the way we thought they would.
Steve and I walked in yesterday at about 10:30, expecting to be laid off. That didn't happen. Instead, two other people requested to be laid off (basically saving my job and Steve's), and one other person was let go by the company. So now it is just me, Steve, and one other person (other than the owners). The new hierarchy is extremely questionable. I don't know how long it will last, or how long I will last in it, for that matter. I'm just gonna try to stick it out for a while and save up some money. I guess we'll see.
Jack's website hasn't been updated as planned, even though I have more pictures and stuff to put up. I'm trying to get on that today.
Good and Bad
posted on june 16, 2002, tags: entertainment
We saw The Bourne Identity last night... it was great. Very fun to watch. The action scenes were very cool and the fighting was unique and extremely neat. After the film I wanted to be a super-soldier too. Well, I still want that.
Bad things are happening at work right now. It could get messy. I hope it doesn't.
More Credit, Please
posted on june 15, 2002, tags: me
Ugh. At age 21, I know something's wrong when my credit limit is so low. I mean ridiculously low. College really screwed me up, let me tell you. Plenty of time when I didn't have a job and didn't pay any of my bills. Now that I do, though, it's already too late for me. Getting a credit increase, or a new card from another creditor is impossible. Therefore, getting things that I should be able to afford but would not like to spend for all at once is also impossible. It's very annoying.
Actually, I should clarify something. We all know I'm talking about getting the Apple iBook I want. While I can "afford" it in the long run, I would like to get it and pay for it over two months or so. That's what's frustrating to me. Not having the option to get it and then pay for it.
Eh, I should clarify something else. I should stop saying I can "afford" it when I clearly can't at this moment. Otherwise I would have it, right? Damn you Apple for taunting me!
Welcome Jack
posted on june 14, 2002, tags: site
Two months, three weeks. Gray tabby. Male. And just about the cutest damned thing you'll ever see. Say hello to Jack. He's running around his new home acting crazy, pouncing on his scratching post's spring-and-ball.
He also has his own website, jack.maniacalrage.net, where you can see pictures and videos of the little guy. It will be regularly updated. Watch him grow and play.
Note: I just realized the first slide-show of pictures on jack.maniacalrage.net doesn't seem to work exactly right in Netscape browsers. You guys will have to use the drop down list to switch pictures. Sorry.
Getting Ready
posted on june 14, 2002, tags: site
Preparations are made. The house is clean. We are ready.
Not much time now...
A Few Pointers
posted on june 12, 2002, tags: random
Advice for a rainy day:
- Don't throw your cigarette onto the roof of the car you're driving in. It's possible this could start an engine fire. That would not be good. Unless you are invincible. Even then, still not good.
- If you decide to walk to lunch, check the weather first. I suggest weather.com. You never know if it will be pouring down rain on the walk back until after you've eaten your cheesecake and feel like a fucking hog.
- If workers are digging a trench next to your building, don't question why they have a bottle of champagne in their cooler. Frankly, after digging a ditch in the rain they deserve to celebrate.
Another good thing to remember is that drinking rain in New Jersey is probably more dangerous than you think.
Feeding the Info
posted on june 11, 2002, tags: site
I have a pretty good idea of who reads this site regularly. I know there probably at least a few of you who I don't know, though. And perhaps, just perhaps, some of you have websites that I would be interested in.
Over the past few days, I have been asking for more sites to add to my list of 'elsewhere' links you see on the right over there. I haven't gotten to great a response. But I am interested in my visitors' sites. If you have one, please let me know.
On a note partially related to this, I would like to know how many of you come here on a regular basis to read my entries. The reason I crave this knowledge: I'm thinking about having an RSS feed available on the site. This would allow for anyone to get the last few entries from an XML file and place them in their site or something of the like. I would be willing to swap RSS feeds with others, as well, hence my wishes to see others' sites. Just a thought.
Annoying Cable
posted on june 11, 2002, tags: entertainment
Is it too much to ask for smart advertising on television?
We have Digital iO cable at home. Cablevision. I see more ads for getting Cablevision cable than anything else. A constant stream of "cable is better than satellite" and "get Cablevision now!" commercials all day and all night long. I don't understand this. I think it's ridiculous that my cable provider doesn't know I have cable. What are they trying to sell me? I already bought the product! I have the gold package (every channel), and yet I still see commercials about adding HBO or Showtime to my lineup. They are already added!
The same thing occurred when I lived in Staten Island and we had DirecTV (satellite). Although I must admit there were fewer instances. Still, every now and then a "sign up for DirecTV and get free installation" commercial would pop up.
Now I'm asking why. Why, in the day of digital cable, should I ever have to see a commercial to sign up for cable? My system should know exactly which channels I have, what my setup is, and at least know that I have fucking cable. I should not have to see these commercials.
My Computer History, or: Why I Want an Apple
posted on june 5, 2002, tags: me
The first computer I ever played with was the work machine my dad brought home and placed on the desk in his office. The purpose, apparently, was for the box to collect dust. I rarely saw him use it, and when he did it was only for a minutes at a time. I never got to play with it until he bought the first computer game I ever played: Test Drive. It was a rather simple driving game (basically you went straight or turned around a long corner; other cars tried to hit you and if you got hit your windshield cracked and you were 'dead'). I enjoyed it.
A year or so later (I must have been about 6 or 7), I started playing around with my grandfather's computer when we would visit his house. These were the days of DOS, so to play any games I had to learn how to navigate my way around. Slowly but surely, I figured out how to do anything I needed to. Shortly thereafter, I was playing SimCity, Life & Death and Wolfenstien3D like a madman.
It wasn't until junior highschool that I was around computers on a regular basis, however. In 7th grade I found something even more interesting than games. I would frequent the library to mess around on the Apple MAC LC II. Using Netscape 1.0, I would constantly browse the most amazing thing I had ever seen—the Internet. Back then I had no understanding, however, so I only went on the school district's website and looked around. Still, it was fun.
In 8th grade everything really started to pick up. Two of my friends had computers with Internet access (one with AOL and one with Netscape and a dial-up account), and I would frequent either house just to be on the Internet. Eventually I began to understand a bit about how it worked, and how much it was capable of.
In the beginning of 9th grade, one of those two friends got Netscape's newest version—one that had a tool to make a webpage—and we created what became my first website. Hosted on her dad's ISP webspace (I think it was 2MB of space if I remember, maybe less), we made a small site for movie reviews. Shortly after it started, it died from lack of updating (don't get me started on how this habit has continually come back to haunt me).
In 9th grade I received a Vendex Headstart (Intel 8086 8MHz, 640k ROM, no HDD) PC and an Apple Fat MAC (8MHz, 512k RAM, 512k of ROM, no HDD) from one of my mother's friends. The Vendex was DOS based, and had two programs: WordPerfect and Tetris. I wrote plenty of things on this box and played Tetris until I wanted to puke. But the Apple was even more interesting. After playing a text-based game (I can't recall the name—it was a murder mystery), I decided I wanted to create my own. After much fiddling around, I designed a game that was text-based and asked you for different disks depending on what you did. It was ridiculous, but fun. I also began keeping a journal and drawing plenty of pictures in Paint. The Apple eventually died and the Vendex followed shortly after. Angered that I couldn't the Vendex to work (it at least would turn on, the Apple was just garbage), I finally opened the case and (using a staple gun) stapled the motherboard while it was on. Needless to say, that put it to sleep for good (as well as exhausting pink smoke that quickly filled my basement and scared me).
Later that year, I convinced my grandmother to purchase a laptop for me. Don't ask me how. I got a Texas-Instruments Pentium 100MHz laptop with 8MB of RAM and a 700MB hard disk drive. I was in heaven. Windows95 was pre-installed when I bought it, and the first time I booted it up, I had to create a copy of Windows using 35 disks (the computer didn't have a CD-ROM drive). Still, it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I took that thing with me everywhere. I still have it today, although since I got it I've upgraded the RAM to the maximum 40MB and put a 6GB hard drive in (it's also running Windows98 and has an external PCMCIA 6x CD-ROM drive). However, I still never had an Internet connection so the computer was used mostly for writing papers and drawing in MS Paint.
In highschool, I became the webmaster of the school newspaper and attempted to create a website. That never turned out. But I did use Hotmail a lot. I eventually started hanging out with Steve, and he helped me to create what I considered my first 'official' homepage, "Garrett's Realm," on GeoCities. Despite stating at the bottom of the main page that the site would be "updated daily," it was never updated once after its creation.
When I moved to New Jersey in 1997, I was using my family's WebTV for Internet access, and decided I wanted to create a website. Using the WebTV, I created a site called "Bull Sht" with free hosting from Angelfire.com. Trust me, it was difficult writing HTML with the WebTV unit. Especially since I really didn't even know HTML all that well. Eventually I began spending my lunch time in the computer room at school and slowly learned HTML completely. Bull Sht had a new version before the year was up and it was actually semi-decent. It was just a collection of writing.
In the summer between 11th and 12th grade, I finally got a PCMCIA modem for my old laptop and got Internet access at home. Shortly after I found the first version of AOL Instant Messenger and told Steve about the service. We began talking over AIM regularly (since he lived in Seattle). I saved all my money from working and finally bought my very first "real" computer. A custom-built Pentium II 350MHz PC with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive. I'm still using that computer as we speak (lots of little upgrades, but still the same processor).
Over the years, I've been content with my PC. But, at the same time, I still kept my eye on Apple. I loved their operating system and their versions of the programs I used. But Apple was always too expensive for me. I watched from afar as my friends bought them (or got them) and was always jealous. I always wanted one. Especially when they started to look cool. The designs have gotten better and better over the last few years, and now nothing in the PC market looks nearly as smooth. When OSX came around, I couldn't hold back my jealousy any longer. I began to lash out at my Apple toting friends whenever the opportunity arose. I hated them. And I so desperately wanted to become one of them.
Now, as I look to purchase a new computer, I know exactly what I want: I want an Apple laptop that looks great, is small and light, and is powerful enough to do what I want. Oh, and I want OSX. Am I a traitor? No. I've always loved Apple's machines. Am I an Apple freak? No. I love my PC and I will always have a PC. I could never go all-Apple. I wouldn't want to. I want to have the best of both worlds, and as a designer/developer I believe that's the smartest way to go about it.
I've begun saving my money for a new Apple iBook. I can't wait until I can buy it. I'm going stir-crazy sitting here thinking about how great it will be to have, and how long it might take me to get there with my current salary. But I don't care. I've wanted an Apple for a long, long time and I am going to finally get one. I can't wait until I see OSX on my desk next to WindowsXP.
If you want to help, click the donate button on the right.
And Another Thing
posted on june 3, 2002, tags: site
Oh, I forgot to say: after many months of NameZero holding maniacalrage.com, it was finally released last week and became available. I quickly snatched it. Now, if you type www.maniacalrage.com into your browser, you will get this site as well. Please note that the main URL is still maniacalrage.net, and only email sent to the .net address will be receieved. The .com version is simply a parked domain.
On this subject, I've been informed lately that my site's name is hard to remember how to spell, and therefore sometimes impossible to visit because people can't remember the address. I am open to purchasing a shortened version of the domain name (www.mrage.net is available) if that would help... let me know what you think, please!
Mission(s) Complete
posted on june 3, 2002, tags: site
Well, for once in the history of this website, I actually did what I said I was going to do. I fixed the problem mentioned two days ago and it was implemented yesterday. You can't see it because the conditions causing the error are not present right now (there's an entry for this month). But it is fixed. Come next month, if I don't have an entry up right away, you'll still see this month's content. Yay.
Another amazing thing is that I finished the search yesterday as well. Holy crapo—two things accomplished! The search is currently in beta, but I really like it. I actually wrote a full search with the help of Courtney over the period of 3 days, but scrapped it last night at about 9pm. I just didn't like the way it worked. Then, in about 4 hours, I wrote a new version and it works quite well. If there are features you would like to see, or you have comments or questions, please either reply to this entry on the forums or email me.
Stupid Error
posted on june 1, 2002, tags: site
Ugh. Another problem with the current setup of Rage—if there isn't an entry for the current month, it errors. Like, for instance, on the first of each month. I never get an entry up at 12:01am, obviously, so there's always an error until I remember this problem. This is a definite 'need-to-fix-immediately' issue that hasn't been fixed yet (and it's been months). Tomorrow is the day.
Also, I've been building a search feature for the site which should (I hope) be finished tomorrow as well.