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Article posted on Sep 30

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• Posted by Ryan Finnie on September 30, 2002, 3:01 pm

Yes, I am incapable of sending a completely serious email at work. Re: scheduled downtime for a mail server at our Reno site (the secondary MX at Raleigh takes over during the downtime):

Any incoming mail destined for RNO will be held in RDU, and will be offered free meal vouchers for its troubles. Sorry for the inconvienence and thank you for flying Redundant Networks.

My latest frivolous eBay purchase arrived today. I am now the proud owner of the world's second microprocessor, the Intel 4040. There's a 4004 for sale on eBay now, but it's at $100 with over a day to go... I can't spend that much right now.

Oh, and the furniture for my living room was delivered yesterday. I probably shouldn't be as excited as I am right now, but 1) those cheap Ikea longer chairs were killing my back, 2) it actually looks like I have a living room now, as opposed to a room with a TV in it, and 3) I paid $1300, damnit, I better be excited. Pics here.

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Article posted on Sep 28

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• Posted by Ryan Finnie on September 28, 2002, 10:57 pm

Hey Amber, I hope you feel better soon. :(

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Article posted on Sep 24

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• Posted by Ryan Finnie on September 24, 2002, 7:57 am

7 days and 500 beeps later, my cellphone's battery is almost drained. Whatever you do, NEVER buy the Sony-Ericcson T61z. It's a piece of crap. Reception is poor, and the operating system is VERY badly designed. For example, if I lock my keypad, then a call comes in, I answer it, then end the conversation... would would expect the phone to re-lock itself, right? NO, it doesn't, allowing me the pleasure of calling random people in my address book without knowing about. Plus the bug of the week has been the phone complaining that the battery is low every hour or so. And the battery lasted for a week. Go figure.

Also, I got my Linksys WET11 today, and promptly sold it on eBay after I got it. This is after I found that a second WAP11 in AP Client mode does the exact same thing as the WET11, but better and with more options available. Plus you can get a WET11 for $120, while you could get a used WAP11 for $70. Can anybody explain what would make me use a WET11 again? (Except for my own initial ignorance.)

On a related noted, I have a WET11 for sale on eBay. It's a fine piece of hardware and is virtually brand new. Why not pick one up for a loved one at a great price? ;)

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Article posted on Sep 23

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• Posted by Ryan Finnie on September 23, 2002, 11:23 am

Note to self... not matter how hard you try, this will not work:

foo IN NS 1.2.3.4

Yes, I am a moron. Yes, I expended considerable braincells figuring out why recursive queries were failing before seeing that.

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Article posted on Sep 22

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• Posted by Ryan Finnie on September 22, 2002, 9:06 pm

(You wrote about me in your journal, turnabout is fair play.)

A few weeks ago I met a girl, Amber, at the local LUG meeting. My first impressions of her were somewhat degrading. "Oh, she must be one of those wannabe geeks who has Windows 95 on her desktop and once heard about that 'Linux' thing." My prejudices were completely wrong, as usual. She has a CCNA, groks Perl and hangs out on IRC. I am in love.

Last night she came over to my apartment. We drove around in my Prius for a while, I gave her a tour of the Reno datacenter, and we played PS2 games until 1:30. Probably the most unorthodox and geeky dates in history. Ahh well, I had a great time.

In other news, the car seems to be better now than on thursday. The pull isn't as bad. Nontheless, I'll still have the alignment checked next month. Oh, and the apartment is 80% clean. I must finish and take pictures and send to my parents to prove that I am capable of this.

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Article posted on Sep 19

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• Posted by Ryan Finnie on September 19, 2002, 9:29 pm

Yesterday I did a very stupid thing... normally I take the long way home, since the most direct way (McCarran) is in the middle of a 3 year construction project. This time I took McCarran, which amazingly had no lane closures or 24-hr construction equipment working (this was about 8:45PM).

Anyways, I had just recovered from getting cut off by an idiot with a station wagon. I took what I thought was a left-turn lane to a street I needed to get on. It was a left-turn lane, however, it was the exit from the lane in ONCOMING traffic. Rather than slamming into oncoming traffic, I jerked the steering wheel right and hit the traffic island at about 30MPH. My heart started beating again, and I pulled over to the side of the road.

The prognosis could have been worse. The front plastic skirt was scraped (not a problem, that's what the skirt is there for), and the driver side rear tire went flat. Kind of odd considering the brunt of the impact would have been on the FRONT tires. Oh well.

This morning I called around, looking for someone who sold the tires that came with my car, Bridgestone Potenza RE92 P175/65R14 XL. Appearantly this tire is not used that often, plus it is low resistance, built specifically for the Prius. Hence, hard to find. Hence, expensive. Now, I know racing/high performance tires can get VERY expensive, but I don't own a sports car, and I consider $80/tire installed pretty steep for an OEM tire. Nontheless, I eventually found a store (Big O Tires) that carries them.

Pictures are here. First two are of the driver's front tire for reference. Next two are the newly installed tire. #5 is the underside and skirt. #6 is something unrelated: a small chip on the hood from a couple months ago that I have not patched yet.

The car is pulling to the right slightly, but not enough to cause problem or be that annoying. I will have the dealership examine it at my 6-month maintnence cycle next month.

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Article posted on Sep 9

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• Posted by Ryan Finnie on September 9, 2002, 4:43 pm

My bowels are sore, and my thumbs hurt. No, the two aren't related.

Yesterday I had a grilled chicken sandwich w/ fries from McDonald's for dinner. The chicken sandwhich was yummy, and is actually fairly good for you. However, I shouldn't have had the fries. I haven't had McD fries for about 3 months. My digestive track probably saw all that grease and wanted to make sure I would never do that again. Hence, I spent most of the morning in my bathroom. Didn't stop me from working though. God bless 802.11b.

Yesterday evening I got home at about 8PM from work (mind you, yesterday was a Sunday, but I still love my job). I unwrapped the seal from Tony Hawk 3 which I had bought Saturday, and proceeded to play it. When I next looked at the clock, it was midnight. I haven't played video games for 4 hours straight since I was 12, and my thumbs are reminding me of that.

If you've played Tony Hawk 3 for PS2, here's what I did in 4 hours: I completed ALL goals in The Foundry and got some exp points and the Canada level unlocked. The last goal to hit was the 60,000 point goal. At the end of that run, I was jumping up and down and howling (the neighbors must have been pleased). One of the tricks ALONE netted me over 32,000 points and involved a lot of jumping, tricks and multiple grind jumps on the catwalk.

So I've finally found a PS2 game that amused me for more than 5 minutes. I also bought Simpsons Road Rage Saturday, and it's very cool (much better than what it imitates, Crazy Taxi), but didn't hold my attention as much.

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