Month: February 2004

Dreamhost Sucks In February

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It must be a February thing. Last year, around the same time, Dreamhost, the company where I house all of my websites, started giving its users major problems with its mail system. Here we go again. If you sent me email today, you can pretty much assume I didn’t get it. This is particularly disturbing because I’ve been expecting some important emails, and I shouldn’t have to find a new email provider for February every year. I don’t want to have to start couting ass points again.

Update: Here’s Dreamhost’s reply, and it was quick:

A spammer initiated a huge attack on the cluster of mail servers that hosts at least one of your
domains’ mail. We’ve blocked the spammer and are clearing out the tens of thousands of messages
left by the attack. It’s made mail slow on this group of machines, and has exacerbated the high
load due to MyDoom, the latest Windows virus. All mail will be delivered, just slowly. We’re
working to ensure that a similar attack won’t slow mail down so badly in the future.

Solution For Workaholics

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Are you addicted to workahol? Maybe you need a life coach. Make sure you get your company to pay the $1,000 per month fee, though.

Interesting quote seen today: “Ideas rot if you don’t do something with them” (source). I have probably a hundred various ideas formed or half-formed in my head, in various stages of development. I have many domain names registered, sort of in the hopes that my thoughts will eventually progress past the most basic stages.

Beta to Alpha to Theta to Delta

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You would think that with only two hours of sleep the night before, I’d be out as soon as my head hits the pillow. But no, that doesn’t seem to be how my body works lately. It seems to want to shuffle around in the bed for at least an hour, trying to find a comfortable position. Even worse is my mind as it shuffles around from thing to other thing, trying to find a comfortable topic to reduce my beta brain waves.

What I Learned

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Here’s a quick update to my weekend review, with some things I learned this weekend.

  • A semi-drunk stranger on the train can make you feel like crap for the rest of the weekend by saying, “You’re pretty smart. You should be doing something more than xyz.”
  • Same semi-drunk stranger can be clueless when he suggests I go into politics due to my ability to use “doublespeak.”
  • I need to discover a more regular sleep pattern.
  • The golden ratio (Φ) is a constant (not a variable) with a value of approximately 1.61803399, and its value is neat because Φ – 1 = 1 / Φ ; and Φ + 1 = Φ2. A rectangle with the aspect ratio of Φ is the one people find most pleasing and approximates the ratio of anamorphic wide-screen film. It also appears in nature a whole lot and is tied directly into the Fibonacci (Leonardo, Filius Bonacci of Pisa) series. That’s just an overview and I’m sure some mathemticians would split (intersect?) hairs. Here’s some really detailed information.
  • This doesn’t really count as something I learned this weekend. It is more something I did when I should have been sleeping. I rearranged my photograph album again. I think I’ve found a format I like, but I still need to tweak it.
  • Let me go back to the “most pleasing rectangle” thing. People have actually done surveys on this, asking a wide variety of subjects to point out “the best rectangle” from a number of options. When the results are graphed, there’s a huge peak as you get close to Φ. By the way, this can all be related to music, too, but that’s another story for another day.
  • Oh, almost forgot. In fact, I did forget, so I’m adding this several hours later. Georgia Tech invented (or first utilized) the forward pass. That’s football. That’s American football. And I’m not sure if this information is true, but it was the opinion of a very obstinate train passenger.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

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It’s the future, future, future! This weekend I decided to take a trip to New York City to meet Amy and catch an improv show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The group we saw is called Mother, and they did two sets. The first was a “Harold” long form and the second was a series of scenes based on music brought in by the audience. The CD I contributed was a Marine Drum and Bugle Corps CD of which, for some reason, I had two free copies.

It was fun, and now I’m considering taking classes at the UCBT Improv School. It’s only $300 for eight weeks of classes. I seriously doubt my employer will reimburse me for these expenses the way they do for my MBA degree, though.

Up

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I had the opportunity to nap yesterday. I should have set the alarm; I managed a nice long rest between 5:00 and 10:00 pm. I took care of some classwork and eventually headed back to sleep. I woke up several times throughout the night, and in doing so I was able to remember at least one dream.

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Conversation At Work

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When talking to someone about an event I will be planning for March, and how we’re getting a late start again this year, I commented, “… and it’s almost February already.” Apparently, it is February. I guess I didn’t get the memo. I will have quite a bit on my mind this month (you know, people, places, things) on top of school work keeping me busy. The type of school work I’m doing could very well change by the end of the month, however. We’ll have to see about that.

What?

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I don’t understand this at all. It’s just a fcuking sport! Get over it. And when you go about getting over it, get over it without running other people down or killing people or rioting. Crazy drunk idiots. How can we, the mighty Americans, bring peace to the world if we don’t know how to live in peace ourselves?

Sorry, sometimes I have to just let things out. Is there anything today that can restore my faith in humanity? Someone give me some good news, please… And by good news, I don’t mean the fact that Janet Jackson showed the world her Super Bowl Half Time Nipple.

Can’t Stop Looking

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I was trying to do some school work last night, but the television landed on The Surreal Life. I didn’t want to watch, really, I didn’t, but they make these shows so that you’re just a little curious about these celebrities. The “celebrities” for the evening included Ron Jeremy, Trishelle from The Real World Las Vegas, Tammy Faye, some girl from Baywatch, Rob Van(illa Ice) Winkle, Erik Estrada, Gary Coleman, aluminum, copper, iron, and many others.

I actually spent time away from my writing to ponder the irony of Vanilla Ice, who was trying desparately to escape his past (he is a much different person now), giving Gary Coleman a hard time by trying to convince the diminutive former California gubernatorial candidate to say, “What you talking about, Willis?” to Todd Bridges who happened to show up.

I did eventually return to my studies after forcing myself to at the least put the television in mute mode. I could have just turned it off, but if I did, I wouldn’t be able to glance up occasionally just to check to see if any more ridiculous former celebreties had entered the picture.

At least now I know I never have to watch it again, nor will I want to.