A quick addendum regarding the previous post…

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

Apparently the pic came out a bit clearer on my phone than it did on the actual post, as at least one person has had difficulty in telling what the game I took a picture of was. The game is called The Grid, and it’s a game the MK development team worked on between Mortal Kombat 4 and Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. It’s a third-person shooter deathmatch style game, similar to Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament. It’s very rare; the few people I know who have seen it were MK Online staff members who saw it at the Midway studios. I’m rather shocked I got to see it, and just had to play a round or two. It’s a bit too bad it never made it to wide release; maybe the Midway people should consider releasing it to Xbox Live Arcade…

Anyway, yes, I’m still in Jackson visiting Misty. I’ll have a full report of what I did when I get back. For now, I’m just going to get some rest as I have a bit of a long day ahead of me tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes…

A relief and a rant…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, as per the previous post, I went ahead and scanned Mom’s laptop after she admitted at dinner last night that she opened one of those “greeting card” virus emails. I loaded ClamWin Antivirus Portable and AVG Anti-Rootkit Free onto the laptop and scanned it… to find nothing. Afterwards I talked to Mom, and it turned out I had misunderstood her. She had opened the email, but hadn’t actually gone to the link in the email. I was definitely breathing a sigh of relief at that point, let me tell you. :-)

On a completely different topic, I was reading a Fark forum thread earlier that was originally about an article bashing nightclubs, and there was a lot of debate over the subject. I was slightly amused by it all, really. Truth be told, though… I hate nightclubs. I always have, really. Don’t get me wrong, though… I like a good bar where I can sit and have a drink. Nightclubs are a different story.

Anyone who’s been with me in one (Jesse, Matt, Chris, and Scott Howell, for example) would tell you that it is a completely alien environment for me. Malia might actually agree when I say it’s probably mostly my Asperger’s at work. It’s too loud, the lights and whatnot are too disorienting, I don’t dance, and I’m shy. As a result, I usually end up at a back wall or on the railing by the dance floor having a drink by myself. If I get out on the dance floor, I literally have to be DRAGGED out there. 99% of the time I end up standing around waiting for the night to be over. The last few times I went was because it was either 1) free and others were going, or 2) I was the designated driver. Otherwise, I avoid nightclubs like that like the plague. I’m sure others can have fun there. Chris always seems to have a good time at the clubs. It’s just not my thing, and I never can enjoy myself even when I try.

Ah, well. I guess I don’t really have to worry about it too much anymore; my friends (other than Louie and Chris) aren’t really the clubbing type, and when I go to dance clubs with Louie I can always talk to Dave and BS for a while. :-)

As for the rest of this week, here’s hoping it goes fast. Friday can’t come fast enough, really… heh. We’ll see. :-)

Another slow Saturday…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

Eh. I have to say it’s been a slow weekend so far. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you; it’s been somewhat productive and relaxing at the same time. Still, like I said, it’s been slow for the most part.

Before I go any further, though, I switched my main PC’s wallpaper recently. I figured some people might get a kick out of it.

Main PC desktop - 11 August 2007

Yes, that is Samus Aran from the Metroid games. You can get the wallpaper from here.

My actual main productive time today was this morning. I had to go get my hair cut (before I go to visit Misty on Friday), and while on the way home I picked up my glasses from the optometrist. The last prescription I had, well… heh. It’s kind of funny. When you have your eyes checked, the optometrist keeps going from lens to lens to see which one you see better with. I must have chosen wrongly the time before, because my glasses never seemed right. My close-up vision was screwed, as was my far far vision… and I’d get headaches if I pressed it. This time, though, I put the glasses on and my vision was crystal clear. I’m a very happy camper.

I also tightened up some of the security on my mail server today. Several days ago I instituted greylisting to reduce the amount of incoming spam, which it has done tremendously. Today I added some new definitions to my Clam AntiVirus install that should start blocking the “greeting card” virus emails. So far it’s worked perfectly. Now, though, I need to check Mom’s PC. While we were at dinner, she admitted she had opened one of those emails… bah!

I had planned on going to the mall today to buy some new jeans. Unfortunately, it was so hot outside that Mom didn’t feel like going to the mall, and we had planned on getting dinner after the mall. So, we ended up just going to Strack’s for dinner instead. I’ll probably go up to the Woodlands Mall after work one day this week (seeing as it’s less of a hassle to go there from the office than it is to go to Willowbrook) and get some jeans then. Ah, well.

Otherwise, things have been relatively busy here. Fortunately I’ll be going on vacation on Friday; as I stated earlier I’ll be going to visit Misty for a week. That should be relaxing and a good way to get away from it all. For now, though, I need to get mom’s laptop scanned to make sure that virus didn’t get a foothold on it. Fun fun…

Why hotlinking without permission is not advisable…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

Heh, I found this amusing.

One of the pics on a previous post is an image of David Tennant from the official BBC homepage for Doctor Who. This image now comes up if you do a Google image search for either “David Tennant” or “tenth Doctor”. Several months back, I noticed some people were beginning to hotlink to the image without permission, and I really don’t like my image bandwidth being used without permission. So, I went ahead and set up an anti-hotlinking feature for the images on my site, where hotlinked images are replaced with a smaller version of the site banner.

This evening, I was checking my webserver logs, and noticed someone had hotlinked to the Tennant image from a MySpace profile page. I went to the page, and was greeted by the following hilarity:

A MySpace page gets “pwned” by the hotlink blocker…

He’s already changed the background image; I think he quickly found out what he wanted wasn’t what he got. Still, let this be a lesson to you, kids: don’t hotlink to images without permission. You may not always be happy with what happens…

I seem to be stealing a lot of these memes from Tyggie…

D'Arque Bishop

Your Score: Ogham

You scored

You are Ogham, an ancient alphabet used by a number of peoples in northern Europe and still in limited use by some people in Europe as a “secret language”. You’re all structure and tedious to use, but have outlasted all opposition so far and will likely continue to do so. Just don’t expect to be liked.

Link: The Which Ancient Language Are You Test written by imipak on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I feel embarrassed to be a Texan… and one in this woman’s district at that.

D'Arque Bishop3 Comments

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5020241.html

Texas students will have four more words to remember when they head back to class this month and begin reciting the state’s pledge of allegiance.

This year’s Legislature added the phrase “one state under God” to the pledge, which is part of a required morning ritual in Texas public schools along with the pledge to the U.S. flag and a moment of silence.

State Rep. Debbie Riddle, who sponsored the bill, said it had always bothered her that God was omitted in the state’s pledge.

“Personally, I felt like the Texas pledge had a big old hole in it, and it occurred to me, ‘You know what? We need to fix that,’ ” said Riddle, R-Tomball. “Our Texas pledge is perfectly OK like it is with the exception of acknowledging that just as we are one nation under God, we are one state under God as well.”

By law, students who object to saying the pledge or making the reference to God can bring a written note from home excusing them from participating.

But adding that phrase has drawn criticism from some who say it’s unneccesary and potentially harmful to children who don’t share the same religious beliefs. “Most Texans do not need to say this new version of the pledge in order to be either patriotic or religious,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “This is the kind of politicking of religion that disturbs many Americans, including those who are deeply religious.”

BAH! Debbie Riddle is actually our state representative. This kind of thing pisses me off, as I’m a fervent believer in both freedom of religion and separation of church and state; acknowledging a God in state matters is not fair to those who have a polytheistic or nontheistic religion. (Is nontheistic even a word?) Even the Founding Fathers made sure to keep religion and the government separate. For Ms. Riddle to do this is, in my honest opinion, a violation of what this country was founded upon.

I probably wouldn’t have even had a problem if the children could opt-out on their own. The fact that this is being forced upon them is what makes this odious to me.

At least now I know what I’ll be doing this weekend. I’ll be writing a letter to her voicing my extreme displeasure at what she has pushed through. Also, when it comes time for her re-election, you can be damned sure I won’t vote for her.