Reamer Rick's Procrastidigitation

Belated Thanksgiving

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:45:31 GMT

I should've written this a few days ago and maybe I shouldn't write it at all but here goes:

I'm thankful that I'm only starved for time and not for food. I'm thankful that I exist in one of those historically rare times and places where I have the luxury of being my own worst enemy.

And now off to win a hundred battles.

On the subject of defensins

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:19:20 GMT

After warning a friend about the duck-billed platypus's venom I fell down the Wikipedia hole because of the related topic 'defensins'. That leads to the most interesting blurb I've read all morning.:

Human genome contains theta-defensin genes, but they have a premature stop codon, hampering their expression. An artificial human theta-defensin,^[4] retrocyclin, was created by `fixing' the pseudogene, and it was shown to be effective against HIV^[5] and other viruses, including herpes simplex virus and influenza A. They act primarily by preventing these viruses from entering their target cells.

My incredibly naive and maintenance-coding-inflected interpretation of that is "We found some commented out code from the last developer that seems like it's a pretty good bugfix. Let's uncomment it!". Replace the last developer with God or Darwin or negative entropy or Eris or whatever and leave me out of it. This isn't that kind of blog entry :)

P.S.: Don't harass the full-grown, bull platypus!

Mathematical happenings

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:49:40 GMT

Yesterday at lunch, five other co-workers and myself had exact change for a non-separated $66 bill, including taxes and tips. When we got back to work, the guy who was giving me a lift hit 60000 km and is now only on his drivetrain warranty.

There's only one logical conclusion: The Large Hadron Collider has collapsed the false vacuum and we now live in a universe without prime numbers. Let's all factor something - anything! Hope you weren't depending on public-key cryptography. Was that important? Anyway, I'm sure it'll work itself out.

Thanks, Alan Cross!

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:17:09 GMT

I just wanted to take this moment out of my day to thank Alan Cross and his Ongoing History of New Music show from CFNY 102.1 because he reminded me of something I otherwise probably would not have thought about ever again. He reminded me that the Dave Matthews Band pooped all over some people.

Yes, it's old news, but like a lovable old Flash cartoon, it's nice to dredge it up once in a while.

Portal delivers again

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:28:35 GMT

I love Portal. You love Portal. Everyone and their pet slime mould loves Portal.

The only thing that bugged me about Portal was trying to import custom maps so that they would show up in Bonus Maps properly. Now that I know how to do that, nothing bugs me about Portal anymore.

It turns out that to create a custom thumbnail for a bonus map folder, all you need to do is create a folderinfo.bns file, download the Source SDK, use vtex.exe to export a TGA as a VTF, and write a VMT to describe it, remembering of course that the TGA must have dimensions that are powers of 2. For a 180 x 100 pixel thumbnail that means it needs to be padded by 176 pixels on the right and 28 pixels on the bottom.

Why one has to create a material to give a folder a thumbnail image is beyond me. Giving a bonus map a thumbnail is dead easy in comparison. You just have to steal one of the TGA screencaps from the autosaves and link to it in the map bns. All I know is that there's something hilarious to me about building a map pack and only needing an SDK to create one thumbnail. At least I got to feel like some kind of smarty game modder man for an hour.

it was cabbage rolls

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:45:26 GMT

cabbage rolls

it was cabbage rolls

I had cabbage rolls for dinner last Sunday.

thanks for listening

bye

updating füdblag to previous day

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:38:11 GMT

day 8:
-breakfast: cereal
-lunch: 6 oz. burger with fries at Master Steaks in Mississauga.

I would've loved to go for a 12 oz. but I already had planned today for a buffet with folks. 6 oz. of beef plus the vegetables and bun surrounding it plus fries cooked in lard is plenty. Good times with me and my fellow IT gluttons were had. We spoke of work and of the "You Sujck at Photoshop" videos.

-dinner: Indian buffet.

Stupid amount of over-eating. Breathing impaired by superfluity of meat beneath diaphragm. Love this stuff.

day 9:
-brokefast: cereal
-lunch: Mom's home cooked weiner schnitzel. VEEENUR SCHNITZUL.
-dinner: steak & onions with penne in marinara sauce.

Hit the spot after shovelling several metric fucktons of snow.

day 10:
-breakfast: cereal
-2nd breakfast: Ikea $1.00 breakfast + oj. Fundamentally good value. We didn't buy any furniture... this time.
-lnuch: Price Chopper chicken and taters meal, Price Chopper mediocre creamed coleslaw. SLAWWWWWWW
-dinner: FILE NOT FOUND

Damn, that's my first FILE NOT FOUND this year for PEYEIYLJ month. I'm pretty embarassed. Pretty embarassed.

day 11:
-breakfast: cereal
-snack: LEMON MUFFIN unfortunately not POPPYSEED. cheese muffin HOMPH HOMPH
-lunch: cafeteria chicken breast with cafeteria cajun herbs and spices, roast vegetables
-dinner: fish (whiting) rice + leftover taters, lentil soup, spring mix salad

FOD (day 7)

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:48:41 GMT

breakfast: cereal + milk + coffee + MANGOES
morning snack: peppermint tea
lunch: wiener schnitzel sammich and some cafeteria soup
afternoon unplanned SNEAK MODE snack: a leftover pizza slice from a local Brampton business, Pizza Depot. Good place and they have a Galaga stand-up machine.
dinnar: rice & lentil & shrimp stirfry, coleslaw on the side

day the sixth

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:36:13 GMT

breakfast: cereal + fruit
lunch: ham & salami sandwich and something that the cafeteria called 'beef borscht', not bad but probably too salty
dinner: -leftovers from Monday's ribs
-bittermelon and eggplant salad
-rice n' beans (actually lentils).

tag funf

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:25:20 GMT

b: cereal + fruit + coffee
l: ham and salami sammich + unmemorable cafeteria soup
d: I was actually drawing a blank here until I remembered that it was a...

SHROVE TUESDAY CLUSTERFUCK (slammin' guitar solo):

* blueberry pancake short stack with butter and syrup
* clam chowder with sea legs and Chinese shrimp balls and unusually large clams that weren't from a can. a can of clams.
* artichoke and tomato salad

INTENSE

This has been your yearly MARDI FAT CLUSTERFUCK (wailing on guitar).

day 4 - WHOA FATT

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:08:27 GMT

-breakfast: cereal + 0.33 bananas, cup of carfee
-morning snack: storebought fruit cup and tea
-lunch: steak sammich with spring mix salad topping on rye + small salad bowl from company salad bar... salad!
-afternoon snack: twin date cookies from vending machine. I could not stop the eat attack
-dinner: honey garlic glazed ribs, baked potato, more spring mix salad. so f'ing good.
-evening snack: orange, peanuts, apple, glass of water. Heaven forbid I should go more than 3 hours without eating!

3rd day

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:35:39 GMT

breakfast: no-name cornflakes, no-name cheerios, red grapes, milk

lunch: homemade phở as made by the mom unit.

I went to Wikipedia to get those crazy diacritics on the o (ở). Pedantic enough for you? I just think they're pretty.

Superbowl Sunday Supper at friend's house:
- 20 Metric butt-tonnes of jalapeño poppers
- tortilla chips with hummus with diced red peppers
- thin-crust pizza with chicken, onions, peppers, and two kinds of cheese
- beers numbering two

You know, when I was mentioning other fūd blags earlier I should've described in better detail what I was talking about. emilyruthdotca started this Facebook group to compile blogs like this that are describing their owners' meals all this month. Check it out!

day two (cont.)

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:10:25 GMT

evening snack: peanuts and a Mr. Noodles, chicken flavoured

day two

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:20:46 GMT

breakfist: eggs, sausage patty, home fries, bread, butter, and jam

lunch: debreziner sausage on rye with dijon mustard

dinner: chicken adobo, cabbage, and rye bread.

This was the first meal of the day without sausage. Make of that what you will.

Feb. 1st (cont.)

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:14:03 GMT

-lunch: Wendy's double hold the cheese, regoolur fries, bottle of water.

This tasted good going down but the burger sat like a brick in my stomach for the rest of the afternoon. I need to find a real burger joint around here.

-dinner: frozen pizza with extra bacon added, leftover lentil and okra soup, artichoke and tomato salad, and a breadstick.

-evening snack: kofi, choc. cheesecake half-slice, and carrot cake half-slice.

This was at Coffee Culture in Brampton. Nice place. I should find out if they have a hotspot there. Then I could blag about food while I eat it, pleasing precisely no-one.

It is on!

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:57:55 GMT

Post Everything You Eat In Your Livejournal Month is go!

brakfirst: Cheerios, no-name, flaked corn cold cereal + 0.5 bananas. One cup of cofffeee.

Yeah, that's how far I got. I'm just warming up.

It seems I like to blag about food more than anything else in this poor world. I've thought about why this is the case.

One reason is that I don't think I should be talking too much about work in a world-readable blag. I have never had a problem understanding why blagging about work could be career limiting. Uncharacteristically, for my generation, I do enjoy what I do and am happy to continue to do it. There goes a third of life right there - and besides, who wants to hear a guy saying only that he's "feelin' fine"?

The second third is sleep, a time where I snore so fiercely that I scare children. Ask anyone who knows me IRL and they can describe it far better than I can. Axiomatically, I sleep through my own snoring (somehow).

The 3rd third is divided into socialization, personal life administration, and HORRIBLE WEBSITES. That could be interesting. However, I don't think I'd ever talk about my friends and enemies in a blag with the same flippancy that I do in conversation. Just because I feel one way about someone one day doesn't mean I'll feel different about them the next day - and who wants to hear me bitch about someone on the internet that I could've bitched at in real life myself?

What of the websites? The websites that me and my fellow IRC cenobites trade amongst ourselves like so many eldritch grimoires? Just... no. One time I showed the Mr. Hands video to a sensitive lady and she ended up in hospital for a month. I feel a bit bad about that.

So I guess that leaves two ninths of life that I could be blagging about. Laziness is my only justification for not doing so. If someone can get a laugh about the time I found three packs of gum in my to-do pile at home, it would be a shame if I didn't talk about it.

Finally, I could talk about the food that I eat at least once in a while. Food is great. I like it healthy, I like it junky. Even if I did want to eat less of it, and I do, I could never quit it like you can quit smoking. Because then I would DIE.

I hope you can endure this month of trivia - maybe also check out other people's food blags, because I think they're going to be great. If it's any consolation, I'll be enjoying myself!

Why can't I stop laughing? What's wrong with me?

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 03:59:49 GMT

s/smack that/BUTTSECKS/gi

Slow learner: episode 1

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 22:58:34 GMT

I've been reading Jerkcity for eight years now. I can't believe it's taken me this long to realize atandt's name is probably pronounced 'AT&T'. Then again maybe it's really pronounced atandt.

Sometimes I'm a really slow learner.

The Ultimate Resource

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:53:09 GMT

Did you know that IGN.com is the ULTIMATE RESOURCE for Barbie Horse Aventures trailers, screenshots, cheats, walkthroughs, etc.?

Well it is.

Also, according to the game forums, it's widely agreed that Barbie can kick John Cena's ass.

Adventures in Posting

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 01:28:24 GMT

I just tried to import my elljay into faisbok as an atom feed. Although it looked successful at first,

1. It seems to have doubled each imported entry now.
2. LJ-cuts aren't duplicated. The moldy pickle I found in the fridge during Post Everything You Eat In Your Livejournal Month is no longer hidden.

Maybe I shouldn't have given up on the free RSS feed URL from Livejournal so quickly. Maybe this is a temporary thing. Maybe I should read some more FAQs. I'll find out which one of these maybes was a yes fairly soon, I should hope.

FILE NOT FOUND

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:01:21 GMT

Feb. 24
-------
-breakfast: eggs & toast
-lunch: hot dogs from a car dealership.

I don't want to say that I bought a truck just because there were free hot dogs but that's what you're all assuming anyway, right? It's a sweet truck. Also the hot dogs were pretty good and did not give me heartburn.

-dinner: chili con carne & bread

Feb. 25
-------
-breakfast: cereal & froot
-lunch: dim sum
-dinner: curry chicken & rice

Feb. 26
-------
-breakfast: cereal & fruit
-lunch: gyros on a pita with greek salad
-dinner: FILE NOT FOUND

Feb. 27
-------
-breakast: c & f
-lunch: curry chicken & rice
-dinner: tuna, fish sauce, and rice. also the tunas were babies. I'M A BABY KILLER

Feb. 28
-------
breakfast: cereal + fruit
lunch: 12 oz. T-bone, chef salad, onion rings and butter tart at Master Steaks in Mississauga
dinner: goulash

PEYEIYLJ month ended great with me taking me and three other gluttonous friends to a trucker's steakhouse in my new truck. It's important to enjoy these things while we as a society still have cheap oil and before IT ALL GOES TO HELL AND WE HAVE TO EAT HUMAN FLESH TO LIVE ANOTHER DAY.

In conclusion:
1) I think the only other people left in the entire internet who kept going to the bitter end of PEYEIYLJ were emilyruthdotca and nilsond. Maybe dave invented it? I don't know. Anyway, good hustle, guys.
2) I eat a lot. Of food.

ich bin zuruck

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:51:09 GMT

I'm back from San Francisco and it was good times - good times all around. My Canadian expat friend is doing well and I myself am still feeling pretty relaxed. On the other hand, I think I'm going to miss good Mexican food for at least a month.

Feb. 19
-------
-breakfast: scrambled eggs and toast

Seeing as I'm getting a free room for almost a week, the least I can do is cook something or clean something up once in a while. Thank goodness I didn't screw this up. I know what you're thinking, "Rick, you can give eggs a dirty look and they'll cook somewhat okay. It's like the simplest thing." You'd be surprised though.

-lunch: French fries and a huge-ass mushroom and swiss burger at the Diggery Cafe.

This was with a friend of mine from the Internet. She's got a nice place up near Lake Merritt in Oakland with her boyfriend. She gave me the 10 cent tour, let me IRC on her guest laptop, and treated me for lunch. Why are people so nice to me? I'm a crazy idiot! Oh well, I should be grateful and I am.

-supper: remaining Papa Murphy's pizza slices and bag of premixed Caesar Salad.

Feb. 20
-------
-breakfast: Frosted Cheerioes and milk
-lunch: pork tamal at Celia's Restaurant in San Hoser.

Tasty chips and salsa on the table to start and the meal was no slouch either.

-dinner: Todai Restaurant

Holy moly. Seafood and sushi buffet. I'm actually glad this is not around in Canada. It's too good. If I were ever made aware of a Todai franchise any closer than California then I would have the weight and fat content of a narwhal in less than a year.

Feb. 21
-------
-breakfast: Frosted Cheerioes and milk
-luchn: Casa Lupe in Sunnyvale on Bernardo and El Camino Real.
-supper: Wendy's cheeseburger combo and chicken nuggets. WHOA FATT

Feb. 22
-------
-breakfast: (unfrosted) cheerios and milk
-lunch: sandwich made of Safeway croissant and luncheon meats
-suppar: Togo's Cobb salad and roast beef sandwich
-midnight snack at the airport: rest of croissant and coldcut sandwich

Feb. 23
-------
-3 am snack in San Francisco to Houston plane: mini airplane pretzels and orange juice
-breakfast: Egg & Sausage Biscuit combo at McDonalds in Terminal B of George Bush Airport in Houston, Texas.
-lunch: (home again, home again!) meatballs & rice
-dinner: FILE NOT FOUND. (Unbelievable. I think I've forgotten.)

Man, that was great. I gained 3 lbs. but it was well worth it just to borrow someone else's scenery, climate, and restaurant options for a week. I shall try my best to return the favour this summer.

Still eating

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 02:38:39 GMT

I'm in San Francisco. It's times like these when winter is at its coldest and crappiest when I like to run very far away, preferably diagonally, across the continent.

So far, I'm having a great time, eating clam chowder, doing tourist crap, hanging out with the last Canadian I know who's a good enough coder to stay in California and keep himself in work visas.

For now, I'll just talk about what I et:

Feb. 17
-------
-breakfast: spring rolls + coffee
-1st snack: salami on a bagel
-2nd snack: $5 Whitebox sack from Northwest Airlines
-lunch: carnitas burrito at Chevy's in Foster City
-dinner: filet mignon at Chevy's

Feb. 18
-------
-breakfast: shredded wheat + frosted flakes
-lunch: lobster tail, scampis, clam chowder, sourdough bread, and calamari
-dinner: Pap Murphy's pizza and Ceasar salad.

New days, NEWWWWW days

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:44:24 GMT

Feb. 13
-------
breakfast: cereal + froot
lunch: sammich just like yesterday's sandwich but with a fresh bagel instead of stale bread
dinner: mussels, bean salad, and chicken & rice porridge

Feb. 14
-------
breakfast: cereal
2nd breakfast: egg, ham, and cheese on a kaiser with 2 hash browns
lunch: salad bar salad and sesame seed bagel with cream cheese
dinner: China Buffet. With the assistance of der vater, I treated die mutter to a Valentine's Day dinner at what could be the cheapest buffet in Brampton. Hey, it was her idea! This place was actually pretty good. Sure they just give you a can of Coke without a straw or a glass but who cares.

jetzt
-----
breakfast: serial
snack: communal microwave popcorn
lunch: salami, swiss cheese, and pickles on a sesame seed bagel, small bowl of cafeteria chili
dinner: Shawarma on a pita from Midnight Hot Plate on Clark & West in Brampton.

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:58:19 GMT

So, it looks like I've gotten a little behind.

Monday, Feb. 12
---------------
breakfast: cereal
loonch: sammich made of leftover beef rouladen, runny brie cheese, wilty bag salad, and rye bread on the verge of going stale

This meal was a lot harder on my colleagues than it was on me. I thought it tasted great.

supper: Pizza Depot peperoni pizza slice and leftover bag salad.

This pizza place is a fairly recent arrival in Brampton and I thought I'd throw them some business. Their pizza tasted exactly like it was from a high-school cafeteria. Now I know where to get nostalgia-satisfying pizza from.