Noteworthy Bus Story

July 3rd, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Okay, so I know this isn’t tech related, but I wanted to blog about it anyway.

I ride the bus to work about twice a week. It’s cheaper, easier, better for the environment, and only takes a little longer.  Tuesday of this week was one of those days.

On my morning bus ride on the Capitol Metro 338 Crosstown, a man boarded 7 or 8 stops after me.  He was probably in his mid to late 40′s, long hair, jean shorts, and rode a bicycle.  He sat in the seat right in front of me, the first row of the upper section of the bus.

I noticed after a few minutes that he was staring at other people on the bus.  Normally this wouldn’t be anything to point out, as bus rides are very boring and looking around is pretty much the only entertainment you get, but he seemed to be staring at these people in ways that made them very uncomfortable.  At the time, I couldn’t figure out what he was doing, as he was sitting in front of me, facing forward.

Slowly these people all got off the bus at their appropriate stops (or maybe just to get away from this guy), and it was down to just him and myself.  About 5 minutes before my stop, he stands up (while the bus is moving), looks back at me and stares for a few seconds, then walks down to the lower, front section of the bus, and stands up.  Over the next few minutes, I notice him looking back at me a few times.  Same creepy stare as before.

Finally he reaches up and pulls the “Stop Requested” cable, and as the bus stops, I notice that in one of his hands he’s holding one of those little yellow disposable Kodak cameras.  The bus stops, he looks back at me one more time, takes a picture of me, and gets off the bus.  He goes and gets his bike off the rack, and starts riding down the sidewalk in the opposite direction as the bus.  He slows down when he gets to my window, stares right in at me, and spits on the window!  And I’m not talking a little saliva here, I’m talking a big snotty hunk of phlegm.

What was this all about?  Needless to say, I’m still a little worried to ride the bus again.  I do have a theory though…

This man was God, and I am going to die soon.  That’s it.  That’s my whole theory.

Thoughts?

Petition to force Internet Explorer 8

May 27th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Okay guys…  IE6 has been out for about 7 years.  It’s time to retire it, no?  I don’t think I need to explain why.

Who wants to help me start a petition to Microsoft to force an upgrade to at least IE7, and IE8 when it is released?

I think with Service Pack 3, a newer version of Internet Explorer should be part of the package.  Internet Explorer 6 still being used by about a third of the web population is really starting to hold back the rest of the internet.  It’s time to put this beast to a rest!

Windows Vista SP1

April 15th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

So it’s finally here. After over a year of Windows Vista, Microsoft has released Service Pack 1.

Available for download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/sp1.mspx

After using SP1 for about 2 weeks, I have to say, I’m impressed. I have not had to reboot my computer yet! As I’ve outlined before, I use the crap out of this bad boy. At any given time, I have all of Adobe CS3, most of Microsoft Office, Firefox, Internet Explorer, 2 messengers, Outlook, Thunderbird, Apache, Filezilla, and any number of other specialized apps I need for work. I do this for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

So, stability… yes. They have definitely improved stability. I’ll get back to you with more…

Internet Explorer 8

March 5th, 2008 § 1 comment § permalink

As some of you may have heard, Microsoft just released the public beta of the next version of Internet Explorer, version 8.

If you’re dumb like me, and want to try it, here’s the link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/default.mspx

So, I installed it on Windows XP SP2, and started using it. I am not lying here, I used it for 5 minutes (yes, 5 minutes) before I found a bug.

Now, let me clarify why this is such a monumental thing that I must blog about it. I expected bugs, it’s Internet Explorer. What I didn’t expect was new bugs. When Microsoft released IE7, they fixed a lot of the bugs that IE6 had. Not all of them, but a lot. So, naturally, I was hoping to see at least a few more bugs fixed. You’ll never guess what I found…

A new bug. Something that worked quasi-correctly in IE6 and IE7, that works completely backwards (yes, backwards) in IE8. z-index, a CSS property designed to set the stack order of positioned elements (lamens terms: lets me make stuff appear to be on top of other stuff, or stacked), actually works completely backwards in IE8.

Microsoft, can you do anything right? That’s not be being a dick… That’s me sincerely asking you. Can you?

IE7 logo

Fresh Plus – Hyde Park Grocery

January 3rd, 2008 § 2 comments § permalink

I found out something interesting yesterday about the building I work in.

ENTERMEDIA is located in an office upstairs from Fresh Plus grocery store and ASTI, the Italian restaurant. I learned yesterday that the mural painted on the side of our building (see photo) was actually painted by a production company for a movie that was filmed here.

In the movie The Wendell Baker Story, Will Ferrell plays the owner of a grocery store, and they used Fresh Plus for the filming location.

I haven’t seen the movie all the way through, but I did get my hands on a copy of it and skip to a scene where Luke Wilson’s character is having a conversation with Eva Mendes’ character in front of the store, and Will Ferrell’s character is standing in front of the store. In this shot, you can see the entrance to the ENTERMEDIA office!

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