Overgraduate

A Cozy New Home

2008-01-23T21:02:00.001-05:00

I've discovered the beauty that is WordPress, and HostMySite.com is such a great host that a WordPress blog is included with my plan.

Because it's so, so easy to import from Blogger into WordPress, from this point on you'll find new (and old) Overgrad posts at blog.thathero.com.

Godspeed --

Vindication, But not Mine

2008-01-08T18:05:00.000-05:00

My past few days have been marked by a series of miniature disasters. Last week I bought another 50 shares of Intel stock to go with the 50 shares I purchased a month or so ago.

Late last week, Warner Bros. announced they would discontinue their HD-DVD offerings this spring. Great news for Sony, whose crappy overpriced game console makes for a great, affordable Blu-Ray player. Bad news for... well, Intel, for one, but also for anybody annoyed with Sony's storied history of seeing how many ways you can put "expensive" and "proprietary" in the same sentence.

And then the Buckeyes got smoked in the national championship game. Again. As it turns out, the analysts saying the Big Ten's down and the SEC is up are still right. At least Brandon Saine got to see the ball sometime other than the last 2:00 of the 4th quarter, and Chris Wells threw about the most brutal stiff-arm in history.

Finally, I got a friendly email this morning from Chase cardmember services. "Your payment is due" is lender-ese for "Your payment was due three weeks ago, but this automated email doesn't go out until you've incurred a late fee and some finance charges." Thanks, guys. Sorry I've been trying to starve your children by always paying my statement in full.

Nerdcraft

2008-01-05T01:56:00.000-05:00

It's been long enough, I think, since I canceled my World of Warcraft account that I can mock the game without being knocked from my chair by Hypocrisy in some corporeal form.

By any estimation, there are way too many people - somewhere around 9 million active accounts, last I heard - paying monthly subscriptions to play Warcraft for the game to be just a trend. In my case, several friends started playing while we were still in school, and I was glad to join in as soon as I had a job and a broadband connection. The prospect of running around a huge virtual world with the guys, beating the virtual tar out of virtual enemies controlled by lesser nerds the world over, made several months of catch-up seem worthwhile.

And, for a good long time, it was. There's a lot to Nerdcraft, and we had hours of fun completing quests and picking fights. We'd stumble upon a group of morons tormenting new players, and kick them around until they ran away. We developed quite the skillset for finding the lamest, dirtiest players around, then smashing their faces until they cried and logged off.

The problem came from our lack of virtual dedication: the better your pretend armor and weapons, the tougher your character gets, and when the annoying losers playing the game (it's a game that attracts more than a few) spend 4-6 hours every day grinding for better gear... most fights are determined by mathematics alone. Um, sure, I'd love to sit at my desk for 30 hours a week clicking 2 buttons a hundred billion times so I could be that awesome. Thing is, I already have a job, so I'll pass.

I never wanted to play World of Fight This Monster Four Times A Week Until Your Armor All Matches, but unfortunately that's what the Warcraft developers had in mind for anybody who hangs around more than a few months. I should add that for every complaint my friends and I have about Warcraft it sounds like Warhammer ("Nerdhammer," to keep the theme consistent?) poses a solution. Until then, if you see one of the Warcraft commercials on TV and think "Wow, that must be the dorkiest thing ever," ..you're right!

Dear Mike Hart,

2007-11-17T15:24:00.000-05:00

Next spring you'll have a big NFL contract, but today you are a loser.

Thanks for sticking around, Cap'n Attitude.

Highway Message of the Day

2007-08-23T17:34:00.000-04:00

This message was alternating on one of the signs along 315 today:

FOOTBALL
USE
LANE

...

DINOSAUR
USE
ACKERMAN

The Buckeyes' open practice was tonight, and even if that weren't common knowledge it's not hard to figure out what a generic reference to "FOOTBALL" means when you're on 315. It's also not hard to picture a T-Rex crashing through swarms of witless commuters, veering right to exit at the last second and not even signaling.

I was pretty amazed, what with the open practice gates opening at 5:15, at how light traffic was this afternoon. Presumably some portion of northbound traffic saw today's driving instructions directed at dinosaurs, said "F that noise," and promptly exited at the Medical Center.

Resume Resume-ing

2007-05-19T01:35:00.000-04:00

Ah, fun with words. The perfect way to ruin a post before it's started! Let's just say it seems like a fitting opener to the first thing I've written for... awhile. But I haven't messed with my resume in some time, either, so why not do both at once!

Anyone who has had the joy of searching for a job, applying for lots of them, and interviewing for a few knows it's not too much fun. You can only guess how literally to take posted requirements; do they really mean "3 years experience," or would 1.5 years plus a great memory fit the bill? You never know how to answer their questions; if they have a 200 word limit, should I write 197 words or will 20 do? Not to mention the places who spring an entire panel of interviewers on you - surprise, we'll be attacking you from all sides today!

I'll not provide the impression that I hate my current job, because that's not the case. I like my coworkers and I enjoy some of the work. I can't even say I expect the grass to be greener on whatever other side I find myself occupying, but I'm thinking I could do similar work for a lot more money. As nice as it is to be occasionally appreciated and know that two or three people will miss me when they realize I've left, I don't feel like that makes up for a salary some 30% below the average for government work in my field.

Unmotivated as I am, how much does this really matter? Probably not a whole bunch. I remembered that there were a couple of interesting postings with the State closing today... or at least there would have been if it were still Friday when I noticed. Oops!

Phew(?)

2006-11-16T21:41:00.000-05:00

Come January, Steny Hoyer will be 2nd-in-command in the U.S. House of Representatives. This is an indication that the Democrats are planning to be at least marginally reasonable about the War on Terror. Right? Maybe not, if Hoyer's own press release is any indication...

Among other things, we intend to raise the minimum wage, implement all of the bipartisan 9-11 commission recommendations, cut college costs, make prescription drugs more affordable, and urge President Bush to change course in Iraq.

Or in other words: screw the economy, screw the economy, screw the economy, abandon Iraq. The economic monkeying is standard Democrat fare so far as I can tell, but why has it become so vital we "change course" in Iraq? Because having a volunteer military that fights to defend America's interests is unacceptable?

In the case of Iraq, I am pro-war. Certainly not for war's sake. Not for oil. But because I'd much rather terrorists rush headlong into martyrdom by U.S.M.C. gunfire than at the controls of a 747 or by self-detonation in downtown Washington. By and large, isn't that what's happening in Iraq?

See Mark Steyn's America Alone and check littlegreenfootballs.com every once in awhile. The world is not a happy place, and our allies don't seem to mind so long as the United States is the Great[est] Satan atop your average terrorist's list. If we're too busy protecting the world from America's horrible influence, who will protect America from the world's?

Juice

2006-11-15T22:28:00.000-05:00

Thought you'd heard the last of O.J. Simpson? I, for one, was hoping* the miserable creep would see continued fame only via tabloids on his way to hell. Mankind is not so fortunate.

O.J. has an upcoming interview on Fox where he'll push his new book (published by a Fox subsidiary) describing how he would have killed his ex-wife and her boyfriend. Hypothetically. If he'd done it.

In a promotional clip for the interview Simpson is shown answering questions posed by an unseen woman.
"You wrote, 'I have never seen so much blood in my life'," the woman asks.
"I don't think any two people could be murdered without everybody being covered in blood," Simpson answers.

If anyone still had themselves convinced that O.J. Simpson is not a murderer, so much for that. Let's say O.J. were innocent. Would an innocent man describe, in graphic detail, murders he was once tried for committing? What if one of the victims was his ex-wife, and the mother of his children? And how's that tireless search for the murderer coming? As a coworker said, "I think it's safe to assume the killer's not hiding on a golf course."

Enjoy this while it lasts, O.J. - your time will come.

* I just finished watching The Punisher again. I wish Thomas Jane would have at O.J. with an unnecessarily complicated combination of arrows, knives, explosives and fire. For days.

Parting Gifts

2006-11-08T19:21:00.000-05:00

If there's one thing we've got to remember about democracy, it's that you can't have everything. If there's one thing we'll remember about Bob Taft, it's that he screwed Ohio Republicans running in 2006. It's extra disappointing for the other guys to win because of how silly your incumbents made you look.

DeWine lost his senate seat. Blackwell lost the race for governor. Although I was hopeful about both candidates (in DeWine's case, only in a "he's not nearly as bad as Sherrod Brown" sense), recent polls made their losses pretty unsurprising. What did surprise me this morning was the way just about every other vote I made was in the minority, too.

Lagging economy? Raise the minimum wage, with increases tied to the consumer price index every year hence! Columbus taxes too high? Boot the only Republican incumbent for another Democrat! Secretary of State's office making huge improvements in transparency and efficiency under Republican control? Who cares, we're on a roll pushing the D's here! Time for a change, indeed. Let's hope Deborah Pryce at least pulls off a save; there are few political consolations like knowing MoveOn.org wasted lots and lots of advertising cash.

Yeah, the Democrats cleaned up in Ohio. I suppose congratulations are due, even for victories won by virtue of not being the other guy. The Dispatch is predictably delighted about how the state is suddenly blue:

Overnight, voters who had handed President Bush another term just two years ago angrily sent him a message by turning Ohio, the national electoral gem, from red to blue.

- although the Ohio House and Senate remain under Republican control. At least a couple Dispatch guys can be joyously quoted at Daily Kos et al as Taft's reign of crappiness clatters into the twilight. Will my fellow citizens wake up if the fresh faces spend the next couple years prattling on about impeachment and micromanaging us into their own little People's Republic of Leftism?

If yesterday's Democratic turnout and Independent abandonment snap the state party out of this funk and back to solid conservative principles, all the better. If Columbus is in fact becoming more like Cleveland... boo. But the blue boys and girls won their turn fair and square, so I hope for Ohio's sake they don't squander it as so many of our Republicans did.

Oh, Reporters

2006-11-05T10:52:00.000-05:00

The right wingers have had their chance to run the party, and they did so poorly.

That's the "big idea" from The Other Paper's Dan Williamson in the November 2nd issue, in his piece titled "Out of the driver's seat and back to the pews." It's like when they printed the paper, they wanted to save people the trouble of actually reading Williamson's article - the above quote is the excerpt highlighted in the center of the page. The title and the quote aren't so much biased as completely stupid.

Which "right wingers" are Mr. Williamson referring to, and when did they "run the party"? In the paragraphs preceding our quote, he talks about evangelical turnout in the 2004 presidential campaign... and about May 2nd of this year, when Ken Blackwell and Sandra O'Brien won their primaries. That's it.

Either the voting on those two dates is equivalent to "[having] their chance to run the party," or Dan Williamson thinks the Republican leadership we've had for the past few cycles is a deeply conservative one. I'm really not sure which of those assertions would be more silly. Reading the article, it seems like this quote fits in more as generic celebration than anything. The mindless Jesus-drones are being dragged out of public office, and it's about time! That wild right-wing Bob Taft and his... er... tax increases?

If Ken Blackwell loses on Tuesday, it won't be because his faith was too conservative or his ideas were outlandish. It will be because Ted Strickland held the liberals by being one of them, and held enough of the rest of us by virtue of having a D next to his name. Dan Williamson and every center-left/left/scary-left pundit and politician can pretend this is a failure of conservatism if they'd like. But, had the R's currently in charge led like conservatives instead of tax and spenders with conservative rhetoric, we'd be reading more whining and less gloating in the press about now.

No, Seriously

2006-11-02T21:11:00.000-05:00

Last night I saw a movie trailer that made me wonder: who keeps giving the Wayans brothers money?

I particularly enjoy the tagline "From the guys who brought you White Chicks." It's as if Pepsi were pushing a new flavor and chose to advertise it as "From the folks who invented arsenic."

For legal reasons I should mention that the image is copyright Sony Pictures. Thanks, Sony.

In Dependence

2006-09-06T07:12:00.000-04:00

When I was a freshman at the fine and frustrating Miami University, I decided to write a book about it. I got the feeling everyone else - like myself - was sort of shuffling along waiting for things to become familiar. College can be a lot of fun, but it can also be completely terrifying, and I wanted to write about both for the sake of the next few years' worth of freshmen.

Although I actually followed through with the writing part, the next few years in the life of "the book" were spent on rewriting, editing, and rewriting some more. I paid some publishers' association for a list of what type of manuscripts individual publishing houses were currently accepting. I sent out cover letters to every place that looked like a match, and to more than a few random companies with submission info listed online. I heard back from next to no one. If I'm a halfway decent writer, I'm a mostly awful salesman.

So after this and similarly spirit-sapping research into independent publishing, I posted the book on my website and left it at that. Then, after I set this blog up recently, I realized how easy it'd be to copy and paste the entire mess online with each chapter as an entry. Enter stage right underpublished.blogspot.com - In Dependence in what is almost certainly its last revision. Instead of clumsily picking apart and putting back together its contents, from here on out I may post comments, updates, and so on right here at Overgrad. If you're lucky.

Another Fair Entry

2006-08-14T22:25:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah, and something funny I forgot! In our afternoon at the fair, my sisters and I wandered through the merchant's building, or whatever it's called. You know what I mean, the big air conditioned plane-hangerish place where you can buy bulk candy, used hats, and those display vacuums with a ball hovering over them... all under one roof. I've not been to many different fairs, but I'm taking a leap and assuming a building of this sort is part of the standard fairground layout.

The funny part - well, beyond the mulleted masses and cat-bags and bizarre medicinal trappings - was the positioning of two booths in particular. I first noticed the Dianetics booth, and laughed and laughed. Then I realized what it was next to: the Ohio Democratic Party booth. If I'd had my camera, and I didn't fear the cult members' reaction, I would have snapped a picture. Talk about a match made in heaven!

This made me wonder... was the placement an accident? Did the Scientology kooks request to be next to the Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland folks, in hope of feeding off their warm and happy progressive energy? Did the Democratic Party rep ask if maybe their table could be next to a brainwashing fringe group, thereby snapping up zomboid voters while demonstrating a respect for "religion?" Most likely, I think, is the possibility that some wicked conservative put the two side by side - in an effort to discredit the Dianetics salesmen.

Then I bet he cackled so maniacally that his top hat and monocle fell off into his pile of gold.

A High-Pitched Flood

2006-08-13T09:51:00.000-04:00

I spent the better part of yesterday at the grand Ohio State Fair with my little sisters. The fair itself was nothing to get worked up about - it's like a bigger, more crowded version of the county fair back home, minus the friends and family. We did get to watch dogs catch frisbees, and the butter cow is always fun to see.

We were at the fair, though, for the evening concert at the Celeste Center. The younger of my two sisters is a big Saving Jane fan, and the Columbus band was opening for Bo Bice. Our middle sister is also a Saving Jane fan, although she refers to the band as "she," as if the lead singer's name was Saving. And... I'm... not really their target demographic.

Nonetheless, I loved the show. Having two little sisters means unavoidable exposure to a lot of Gilmore Girls, Reba, and so on, but in the case of Saving Jane I'm more than happy to be included. I like groups who write their own music, and Saving Jane falls into this category - with better songs than what's written for Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson. Who, yes, I've heard a lot of on account of the above-noted little sister factor. Actually, Marti's lyrics make me wish my sister hadn't told me her name; I'm sure that knowing it somehow takes me past crush and into weird celebrity obsession.

The band played energetically and, not surprisingly, very well. They did a long set - most of the hits from their current album and a new one they'd never performed before - considering that they were the opening act. Live, as on the album, their music fits the lyrics throughout both the noisy and the softer songs. And the lead singer has one heck of a voice... she sounds at least as good live as in the studio. At the end of their performance (which included a Better Than Ezra cover, which was awesome), an Expo Center employee came out to announce that the band would be signing autographs at the merchandise booth.

WEEEAAIIIEEE!!! was the immediate sound that came from every direction. By the time they had heard a few songs, even the girls who had come for Bo Bice were sold on Saving Jane. My sister wanted an autograph, and we were swept along by a deluge of shrieking 14 year olds. I almost had to fight a kid - who looked the type that should be a lineman but isn't because he's too busy sitting in the dark thinking Goth thoughts - when he practically plowed over my sisters to get in front of them in line.

As I stood there surrounded by junior high girls, thinking about what to say to strike a balance between "too cool for you" and "your words are my reason for living," I thought about the band. Here you've got six people about my age who have just spent the last hour working their various parts off... and now they get to meet a few normal fans who wanted to say "you guys are great" mixed in with a whole lot more crazies who just have to get a piece of the action. For all the work they must do writing, rewriting, practicing, traveling, and performing, there's no small amount of PR tacked on top.

Which is why I didn't feel too bad when a security guard came through the line 20 minutes later to tell us no more Herbie Hancocks would be given. All but one member of the band is from Columbus, and they get to spend a whole two days at home before racing off to who-knows-where. Godspeed, Saving Jane... and gimme a call sometime!

Compulsory

2006-08-01T22:15:00.000-04:00

I have a website, which you've picked up on if you read my last whiney post or if you knew me during my "hey I think I'll write about that on my website" phase. The vision for the thing, originally and at most times during its lifespan, has featured reviews about music and movies in an effort to trick hapless surfers into reading my writing. There have been times I've thought it's worthwhile, and times I've thought it's not.

Lately I've been leaning more towards the latter. In part, because I know (as I've always known) there are not all that many people wandering the internet looking for music and movie recommendations from some random dude. Why bother with my crappy reviews when Rolling Stone, Yahoo!, and every local paper in the country is more than covering the crappy reviews beat? That's a serious question in terms of whether or not the site is worth my time, especially since the chances are even slimmer that someone will like my music reviews and dig further into what I've got online.

Another serious question is "What part of my brain is broken?" Because no matter what big or little change I'm making to a page, I have to change a hundred thousand other things while I'm at it. I finally got around to adding reviews for a couple of Foo Fighters CDs I've had for... sheesh, going on a year now. And then when I was finished - I started messing with one of the other reviews. Then I noticed some bad grammar in the one before that. Then I decided to change some other completely unnoticable things. And here we are! Although I might make changes to the way Blogger works, the hands-off-ness of the system is what got me writing here in the first place. If I can type something up and hit a button, it's a little easier to post without subsequently changing it over and over like a total ~~whack-job~~ ~~nerd~~ genius.

But just a little.

Die, dirty dogs

2006-07-26T22:38:00.000-04:00

I remembered to check the "feedback" email for my old website this evening. "Feedback" gets scare quotes because it's only truly feedback if you consider spam robots visitors and if you count spam as comments. Out of 1000-some odd messages, I'd guess 800 followed the pattern of:

Get you/'re bachelor/'s! Your busines dreams can be realize but only with a degree!!!11!

And then there's a phone number to call, with gramatically inept directions on precisely how to leave my name and contact information because this offer is too good to miss! I feel bad, really, that I deleted the whole heap before thinking to copy a phone number so I could share the inside line to a fast-track degree. I guess C1al1s S0ftab5 are sooo last quarter. Speaking of quartering, that's what we should do with spammers! Seriously, if I'm not going to respond to one pathetic email why would I respond to any of the next 30 with the same, exact words from the same, exact place? If you knocked at my door that many times our relationship would progress rapidly to door-slamming and then punching of face.

The one email (again, out of over a thousand) that I saw from a real live person was a request to be removed from my mailing list. Which means, sickeningly, that my contact form has been used recently to spam people other than me, and at least one poor guy thinks I'm the one who did it. "Pissed" would be a good way to describe the way that makes me feel, and "deleted" would be a good way to describe my contact form and anything attached to it. So if any of my site's four visitors ever want to contact me again... tough, because I won't sift through trash knowing others are getting it on account of me, too. But hey, that's the way it goes, Electronic Mass Marketing is a dog-eat-dog industry. I just wish all the filthy rat-dogs would eat each other already and leave my stuff alone.

Ugh

2006-07-14T19:13:00.000-04:00

Today I worked late for the first time ever. It, as anticipated, sucked. Not in a standalone "noooo this is a fate worse than death!" sort of way, but in a "why couldn't this week have ended four days ago" fashion. Lead-in disclaimer for the following paragraphs: nerdery ensues...

If I live to be a hundred and remain lame enough to write about it in 2083, I'll still be railing on about Internet Explorer. My distaste for it is such that no matter how many Africans the Gates Foundation provides with food, clothing, and Short Term Single User Software Licenses, Bill Gates will be on the short list of people I irrationally hate. Other members include the guy who decided Mark Wahlberg should choose the monkey over the blonde in Planet of the Apes, and whomever happens to be dating Natalie Portman currently.

You see, the problem I have with Internet Explorer is that it sucks. If you are working on a website, there are basically three phases. Phase 1: Design. Phase 2: Implementation. Phase 3: Fix all of the things that work in every browser but Internet Explorer. In a typical web development lifecycle, Phase 3 lasts as long as Phase 1 and 2 combined, and is far less rewarding.

So it is that this week I'm working on a surprise continuation of Phase 3 in a project that should have been done months ago. Sadly, its original iteration was written in InfoPath, a fine product by - who'd have guessed! - Microsoft. What I inherited was completely wrong for the business process, so I learned InfoPath while rebuilding from nothing. Only when I started trying to test it did I find that InfoPath cannot do math. Addition, multiplication, you name it, InfoPath's XML processing ruins the living hell out of it. Format it to death and back again and one cent plus two cents will (sometimes, not always) add up to .030000072001 dollars.

Now, here I am, having wrenched the Access backend (can I mention Access without writing a separate paragraph of my hatred for it? -maybe!) into shape and the fronted into semi-functional ASP. Turns out my initial testers are incompetent beyond compare and didn't mention to me that half of the friggin' totals are calculated completely wrong. They also mentioned, only in passing, that any data entry mistake causes the main form to be completely reset in Internet Explorer.

The first issue, I could fix... if someone would, you know, tell me how the totals are supposed to be determined. The second, to my delight, goes to the very core of how Explorer processes ASP code, and is probably going to require a very ridiculous and painful amount of data retrieval. And only now do we get to this post's title -

Sweet, sweet relief! In the middle of my crappy day yesterday, I noticed a poster in the hall about the office next door selling ice cream this afternoon. In the middle of my crappy day today... I had to leave the building just in time to miss out on ice cream. And then it was 5:30 by the time I got back downtown. And boy, was that the perfect way to end the week.

Revenge of Stuff

2006-05-31T22:32:00.000-04:00

Should've known better than to write such an unrelentingly materialistic post and expect to get away with it. Let's see... Friday I broke my couch. This was after I somehow ruined a brand new memory card for my camera, but before the driver's side window in my car came off its track. The window incident preceded my discovery of the above completely un-frozen freezer, which was followed by my bedroom air conditioner making a sound as if a squirrel was mysteriously jammed inside.

In the couch's defense, I did sit on it. Silly me; one must never, ever attempt to sit on a couch, especially a couch weakened by an overwhelming 6 months of age. In the freezer's defense, well, it was only doing what I apparently told it to do when I chickened the dial from "Medium" to "Minimum." Stupid chicken. The freezer takes at least some of the blame for being so small that I had to prop the pizza on something at an angle and them shove the chicken in on top of that.

What I should (and may or may not) remember next time I try to pull something out of my freezer - it's basically one icy mass of melted boxes at this point - is Matthew 6:19-20:

⁽¹⁹⁾Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ⁽²⁰) But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...

Maybe I'll remember, too, when I'm shelling out who-knows-how-much to have my car door pulled apart and the window fixed. Or when I'm wondering how a chipmunk with a tiny jackhammer got into my air conditioner. Now that I've got actual income, I'm finding it harder to focus on real treasures. Talk about your all time backfires!

Definitions

2006-05-20T23:50:00.000-04:00

One of the most important things about setting up a website - probably number two, behind knowing why you're making one - is thinking of a good name.

Well I usually don't think of good ones, so "Overgrad" is what you get. I wanted something that described being finished with college and nothing I could think of was catchier or more succinct. This little site, then, will be dedicated to the sort of phase-limbo of being done with school but not particularly different for it. You get your degree, you find a job, and then what?

What, indeed.

Benefits of Bachelorhood, Exhibits A - C

2006-05-19T19:20:00.000-04:00

If I say the above picture was taken on a new 6 megapixel Canon with an LCD display the size of your head, would that make this post self-explanatory?

I feel compelled to note, also, that my first impression of Onkyo is spectacular. Granted, I was just testing the speakers before putting all but 3 away until I have "places" to "put them" when I've moved in August. But this system set me back under $250 and the subwoofer alone could knock over a water buffalo (either by physical impact or with its acoustic powers).

Oh, and each speaker wrapper is sealed with color coded tape that matches the speaker connections, the wires, and the receiver outputs. That is just extremely impressive for some reason.

A Test Post For the Ages

2006-05-04T23:06:00.000-04:00

Hours, nay, half-days from now, history will look back upon this entry with the utmost of respectful disinterest.