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Article posted on Nov 27

Brrrrrrr

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 27, 2001, 9:33 pm

Fuck, I didn't think it got this cold in California.

I got my ATM card today. Only the last 2 digits are different from the one I lost. Weird.

So, this is my mindset as I walked into my apartment this evening: "Oh shit, somebody broke in and stole stuff! ... Oh wait, never mind, I cleaned yesterday."

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Article posted on Nov 26

No Title

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 26, 2001, 5:31 pm

damn... almost 1 workday went by without 50 firetrucks screaming by my office... now that's shot to hell

Anyone know a good way to keep my rearview mirror attached once it's fallen off? About 6 months ago, the original adhesive failed and the mirror fell off. Since then it's been failing about once per month, and nothing I've done has helped. Epoxy, plastic welding (translation: epoxy with a different name), they don't work permanently. xeno suggested crazy glue -- I must remember that next time it falls off.

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Article posted on Nov 23

Mmmm... cheap burgers...

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 23, 2001, 8:39 pm

That last photo brought back memories. I miss Hot 'n Now. It was only about 2 block away from my high school. When they first opened, their claim to fame was a $0.39 menu. $0.39 burgers, $0.39 fries, $0.39 soda. Later on, they caved into the reality of inflation and raised their rates, but I don't think it ever went about like $0.80.

Plus, Hot 'n Now was always the ass end of pranks and video projects. In fact, it has become a tradition to hold interviews with the guys at Hot n' now, through the drive up speaker, if you had to do a video project for East HS. My project one year was a "documentary" called When Buildings Attack (this was during the When ___ Attack era of Fox). We went up the window and asked them various questions such as if they were being held hostage by the building itself.

Those were the days...

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Article posted on Nov 23

Doh!

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 23, 2001, 8:27 pm

I feel like such a ditz.

Found my wallet. It was behind my bed. If something is always in the last place you'd look for it, why don't you look there first?

I went to ship out my family's computer to them today. I stopped at Mail Boxes Etc where I was greeted with "are you shipping next day?" "No, why?" "That's all we're accepting today, because of the holiday." Am I the only one who sees no sense in that?

So instead I used USPS priority mail, which, with delivery confirmation and insurance, costed less than shipping UPS ground.

I also went to Sam's Club today and got about $150 worth of merchandise. However, upon checkout, their debit system wouldn't take my ATM pin number. And of course, all I have is the Bank One Visa card I got; the rest of my cards #'s were cancelled when I "lost" my wallet. And of course, Sam's doesn't take Visa credit for some odd reason. The cashier suggested that I use the ATM by the enterance. I basically said, "well, I'm not wasting $1.50 because your system isn't working with my card all of a sudden. If you take $1.50 off my bill, I'll do it though."

The cashier looked at me like I'm crazy. I swear, it's amazing how you're treated like a second class citizen if you are unable to immediately pay for something. Never mind the 5 years I've been a member at Sam's or the countless thousands I've spent there. I ended up saying "screw it" and left. However, at the moment, the cashier had my membership card, and wouldn't give it back until she was finished zeroing out all the merchandise. Bitch.

This incident reminded me of one time when I went to a gas station during lunch hour in high school. I put my debit card into the pump, and it said it wasn't recognizing my card. I was walking toward the door of the station when I saw the manager there. I told him my card wasn't working and wanted to try it in there and he said "oh, don't worry about it. Get the gas first then I'll ring it up after." (Mind you, this is Wisconsin where most people are good and you are allowed to pump gas before paying in most stations. The stations that require prepayment are looked at as kinda weird.) So I get exactly $5 worth of gas (this was when gas was about $1.05/gallon), and walked into the station. The assistant swiped my card, which gave the same message. The manager was standing nearby, so I turned to him and told him it still wasn't working. "Well, do you have any cash?" "No."

At that point his mood changed real quick. "You have until 2PM to get back here with money or I'll report this as a drive-off." He then turns to the assistant and says "get his driver's license." "Am I going to copy the information down?" he asks. (At this point I'm opening my wallet to get out my license, assuming the same thing as the assistant. "No," the manager replies, "we're going to keep it until he comes back."

I quickly flip closed my wallet and shove it in my pocket. "No. You have no right to do that." He looks at me with a scowl that suggests I've just robbed a bank. "Don't move, I'm calling the police."

At this point, let me repeat the amount of gas dispensed into my car: $5.

A few minutes later a police car arrives (the cops are fast in Green Bay for some reason) and a cop gets out. The manager says something to the effect that I tried to steal gas and was going to run off without paying. I countered, specifically mentioning that it was the manager's idea for me to pump first, he wanted me to leave while trying to keep my license, and, oh, that my card has worked flawlessly for months, including when I got something at Walgreens that morning, making sure to show him the receipt.

At this point the cop seems slightly annoyed that he's even there in the first place. Still, he has a job to do. I am a criminal. I must die.

"Now, If I take you to the ATM, you'll be able to get money, right?" he says. I say that there's no reason I couldn't. At this point I was expecting the manager to ask for the cop's badge and gun until he gets back. :)

We go to the tyme (ATM) machine, a few blocks away, in his car (first, and currently only time I've been in a police cruiser), and lo and behold, it works. We go back to the gas station, I pay ($5!) and the cop says to the manager, "I don't want to come back here for anything like this again. If this ever happens, get their name, license plate and card number. NEVER try to confiscate a card again."

I avoided that station after that day. That's my little story for the day. If you want to see the asshole's station, look below:

That imfamous picture is actually Main St. in Green Bay. The Citgo station behind the Hot n' Now sign is the subject, the "Car Wash/tyme" sign is not actually a part of the Hot n' Now sign, but Citgo's sign (the perspective is weird here). This picture is old; Hot n' Now is gone, the credit union in the background is gone, and the Citgo station hasn't had a tyme machine for years (it would have been simpler if they did, since tyme was a big part of my bank, so there's 100% compatibility).

My daily rant is over. Go in peace.

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Article posted on Nov 22

Buy my shit.

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 22, 2001, 4:01 am

Go buy some/all of my shit. Here's the reasoning behind selling shit: a couple weeks ago I was playing around with the USPS web site and "accidently" ordered about 50 priority mail boxes and other shit like tape, delivery confirmation slips, and labels. (Hint: if you do any sort of shipping on a regular basis, go USPS priority mail. It's not that much more expensive than regular mail, and USPS gives you all the packing supplies you could need for free, as I found out.) Anyways, I didn't think the order would only go through (no confirmation page or anything). So now I have lots of boxes and tape an shit... And besides, what do I need an old cellphone that I don't have service for? And VHS tapes... I don't even own a VCR!

So I finally did it tonight. I got rid of two old 14" monitors, that is. Couldn't sell them, couldn't give them away, not allowed to throw them away, charities want to charge large sums of money for them to take it away, too lazy to find a recycling plant (which will probably charge me anyways).... I just ended up chucking them in the dumpster in the back of a hotel somewhere.

Today at work the place was almost empty. At 4:30, the CEO kicked me out of the office. On BART I realized I left my cellphone on my desk, so this evening I drove back into the city to get it. Somewhere on the Bay Bridge I realized that 1) the office lobby requires a key card, 2) my key card is in my wallet, and 3) my wallet is somewhere in a state of nowhereness. *sigh*

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Article posted on Nov 21

Impeach bin Laden

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 21, 2001, 11:32 am

ph33r

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Article posted on Nov 20

Damnit

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 20, 2001, 8:05 pm

So Saturday evening, I went to watch the meteor shower along with xeno, ele, hepkitten, rzr_grl, guyver3 and some other people I didn't know. We went up to this hilly place on 92 and got a pretty good view. Kinda chilly out though, not the kind of weather to be wearing shorts in. I am from Wisconsin. Hear me roar.

So I go back with xeno and ele to their place and talk for awhile... by that time it was after 4AM, so I get going back home, stopping for awhile to burn a CD I needed at work and pick up a computer. By the time I actually got to Richmond, it was about 5:45, so I decided to wait for McD to open at 6. Problem is, here they don't open at 6. They open at 7. Bastards.

Sunday I just kinda hung around.

Monday I get up, shower, put on some clothes, grab my keys and cellphone, then look for my wallet. And tear apart the apartment looking for it, I might add. Fuck.

I had everything in that. It must have fallen out while in the dirt field watching the meteor shower. There was no money in it (except for about $20 worth of BART fare), but my entire life was pretty much in that wallet. I cancelled all my credit card/debit card numbers, and went to the DMV to get a temp replacement copy. BTW, AC Transit sucks... still, I wasn't going to take my chances and get caught driving without my license. Actually, later on I found out that cops here just check the physical description on record for you if you're pulled over without a license. In Wisconsin, they arrest you. Go figure.

Ironically, I have spending cash, despite having all my accounts blocked. I looked in my mailbox Monday morning to see that I forgot to check it on Saturday. There was the Bank One visa card I had applied for many moons ago. So I activated it and proceeded to get some cash :)

Still, loosing one's wallet is a major pain in the ass.

Oh, on Saturday I bought a brand new 900mhz 256MB 20GB dell machine from my boss (for a very nice price, mind you), to be used for my family's early christmas present. I loaded WinXP on it. I really hate to say it, but WinXP is really cool for the typical family unit. I already love the ability to group programs into one button on the taskbar. Whee!

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Article posted on Nov 16

Mmmmm... Geeky.....

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 16, 2001, 5:09 pm

So I took one of those geek purity tests, and found I am only 50% geek.

That blows. I thought I was geekier than that... I mean, just because I don't like Spiderman, don't read LOTR every day, and have actually had sex with a female... does that mean I am any less of a geek?

My current T-Shirt collection includes foo/bar, the perl shebang, RSA code and DeCSS code. I currently have about 3 plastic tubs full of PC components. I sometimes dream in Perl. But are these governing factors in their decision? NO! Ripoff.

Oh, and I put down that I don't have ANY root terms currently open. That should make me geeky, not fucking stupid.

I probably work in computers, or a history
deptartment at a college. I never really
fit in with the "normal" crowd. But I have
friends, and this is a good thing.

Take the GEEK Test at Fuali.com!

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Article posted on Nov 16

*sigh*

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 16, 2001, 12:15 pm

<fo0bar> blah
<foo__> hey fo0bar!
<willo> hey hep
<willo> something for you too read
<hep> what?
<hep> what?
<fo0bar> hey foo__!
<hep> does it have to do wit pandas
<hep> ?
<hep> hi foobar!
<hep> foo is not foobar?
<hep> im confused
<fo0bar> yep
<fo0bar> err nope
<foo__> no
<hep> you *nix geeks need better nicks
<fo0bar> fo0bar != foo__
* foo__ is now known as foObar
<hep> instead of generic ones
<hep> ACK!
<fo0bar> oh great
<foObar> there, that's better
<fo0bar> my long lost twin brother!
* hep is now known as f0obar
<foObar> bro!
<willo> the here kitty kitty part was kinda funny
<f0obar> what is it willo?
<fo0bar> DNA Wars, Episode 2: Attack of the fo0bar clones
* willo/#dnalounge is confused now
* foObar/#dnalounge is always confused
<fo0bar> and horny
<fo0bar> oh wait
<foObar> who me?
<fo0bar> it's up to the rest of you to destory my credibility, not myself
<foObar> nah
<f0obar> hehehe
<f0obar> im me!
<foObar> Noooo, it's me!
<fo0bar> no you're not
<foObar> mememememe
<foObar> zackly
<fo0bar> is one of us the real fo0bar?
* willo is now known as f00bar
<f00bar> hmm
<foObar> who knows
<f0obar> mememememe
<f0obar> hahahha
<foObar> no ME!
<f00bar> I am
<f0obar> I AM ME
<fo0bar> will the real fo0bar please stand up
<f0obar> FOO IS FOO
<fo0bar> pleast stant up
<f00bar> you are not
<fo0bar> please stand up
<fo0bar> huh? I'm real, I think
* foObar/#dnalounge does reality check
<f00bar> which one of you is the replicant
<f0obar> tell me about your mother
<f00bar> tell me about your mother
<foObar> heh
<f00bar> heh
<foObar> all are replicants
<f0obar> heheh
<foObar> hehehe
<fo0bar> they are replicator pods that keep you up all night with their
snoring!
<f00bar> you're walking through the desert.
<f00bar> you see a turtle
<f00bar> you flip it on it's back
* Guyver3/#dnalounge blinks
<Guyver3> i think you have surpassed me in the "talking to oneself" category
<foObar> turtle soup
<fo0bar> COOK TURTLE
* Guyver3/#dnalounge gives fo0bar a gold star
<Guyver3> oh
<foObar> turtle testicles
<Guyver3> i didnt see willo change nicks
<fo0bar> willo, and hep, and foo_
<foObar> foo virus

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• Current mood: confused

Article posted on Nov 15

No Title

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 15, 2001, 1:42 am

I shouldn't go into work tomorrow (today?)... There's QuickBooks there; I might infect that too.

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