DurhamNtx's blog: "Carryover from MS"

Originally posted Sunday, February 26, 2006 Like parodies? Interested in Google's fight against Microshaft? Want a laugh? Read on... With signs pointing ever more clearly to the coming battle between Sith software giant Microsoft and search-engine "white knight" Google, industry insiders are battening down the hatches and keeping a close eye on whether Google stays the course and avoids the temptations of the dark side of the Force. "Our company motto is 'do no evil,'" said Eric Schmidt, Google CEO and Jedi Master. "Key to this ethos is patience and tranquility of the spirit. We will conduct ourselves with decorum, and be ready for the conflict when the time comes." Click for the rest... [Ed. note, added Thursday, September 28, 2006 - Don't worry, the link works and doesn't open to porn. What? You WANT porn? Look elsewhere on LC. ~DIT~] Rock on, y'all! Darth Durham

Originally posted on MySpace Saturday, September 09, 2006 My friend, who goes by Fragger, just posted a blog called What is wrong with guys? Basically, he wondered why SO MANY of us males act like utter jerks - they say and do all the right things to get laid and then they're Casper, or worse - the nightmare come to stay. In response to this and the comments thereto: I, for one, will NOT admit that getting laid is MY ultimate goal. At least, not on the first date, it's not. By the third date, maybe. I generally DO want to go out with a lady which - frankly, yes - I find physically appealing. But also something else has to appeal to me - I've had 1 bad marriage and 12 other relationships that flat went wrong for WHATEVER reason. They were all but 2 lacking in something - commitment to me and to us. Most wanted me to be someone else - similar, but this trait or that HAD to go. They did - along with me. Two WERE committed to us - at least for a while. One changed that and cheated with two guys, the other lost her commitment, inexplicably at first. Later I found out she met a man who appealed to her more. I let him have her. Now, my ULTIMATE goal now is to find Miss Right, and enjoy Miss Right Now for a while. And no, sex is NOT as important to me as most guys - friends are just spiffy with me. In fact, I think that would be better. (It might happen, and that would be fine. It might not, and that would be spiffy too.) But there will come a time with ONE lady (I hope) in which that physical contact WILL become important. When, yes, I want her more than anyone, and I want to be with her wherever I am. That is my ULTIMATE goal. And if I don't feel like she's sexy, if she doesn't stir my lions - er, loins, then she probably won't get laid by ME. She has to accept me for me, just as I accept others for themselves. That is NOT to say that I would turn down sex from someone who DOES appeal to me physically. I AM male. I DO like sex. But she probably won't last if she's as willing to jump into bed with me the first or second date as I am to jump her. Sorry ladies, no disrespect intended - it has been MY experience that when that happens very early in a relationship, it usually doesn't last. It's like an 8X11 color photograph - it may be pretty to look at, but that's all there is - no talking, no playing, no interaction whatsoever. That wil turn ME off faster than her being less physically attractive - or, for those less than PC the plainer or uglier girls with a personality keep my affection and attention more than a beauty with none. Basically, I want to have fun, whatever it may be in the context of the lady with whom I'm enjoying time.Whether it's fishing, roller coasters, rearranging her furniture, swimming or banging each other's brains out, I want her to have enjoyed her time with me. And I would HOPE that she would feel the same. If it becomes apparent that either of us isn't enjoying being with the other, I will give up after a while and turn her loose. If we are, then I will ensure we reap the rewards of our efforts, again, whatever they may be. So guys, fuck up your relationships if you want - get laid and no more. I find her soul and her heart are what I want, not JUST her boobs, butt and bush. I want a lady who gives head and mind both! Rock on! Durham

Originally posted Sunday, September 03, 2006 First off, I used to roll my eyes at people who whine all the time about noone listens to them. Camera hogs, limelight hogs - all they wanted was attention, right? *hears crickets in the audience* Okay, maybe not... The reason I say that, and the reason, I suppose, for this blog is about blindly requesting adds. You can look at my full friends list and see about 40 bands/performers. Some of these I requested adds to their friends list and waited patiently for their approval. Then there the other 30 - and I have since discovered how this all works. They see someone's comments on other friends' pages and send requests. One band happened to be on at the same time I was, saw my goofy comments on several other pages and posted an add request. I heard their music, thought it was okay, but nothing special, and deleted their request. As soon as I deleted that one, they posted another. This went on for about 20 minutes, I swear! Add, delete, add, delete - WHY? Until about a month ago, I would actually listen to a band's music while surfing, to see if I liked them, and, if I did, I'd approve them. If not, I'd shitcan their request. Now, every add request I get, I go see if they're a band/performer, If so, I deny them without bothering.to hear them. If the request is from an individual, I poke around their profile. And it's not like I decided to do this arbitrarily. I don't seem to have a lot of time to spend online lately. As simple and boring as it seems to me, I do have a life. If you read my profile, you will see that I warn you of this. I have a couple of lines saying to MESSAGE me to check your band out. At least that way I can tell it was a considered request - you actually saw what kinds of music I like. There are some of my OL friends here who who actually post comments in response to mine, and who send me messages, pokes to make sure I'm alive. And these are cool! I don't ask for this kind of thing. But the attention is kinda nice. And being the social person I am, I tend to respond to that. And I have seen enough in my life to not bother worrying about those who don't. I still post comments, just to say Hi. But I STILL get these oddball, out-of-left-field requests for adds to my friends list from performers. Now, to lend a little more credence to my mild rant, I have wandered onto others' profiles, saw their pics, and thought, "Cute!" But I go READ their profile blurbs and discovered they're anti-men lesbians looking to get laid - and NOT by me. Okay, skip them. Or I find they're psychos with underlying hate messages in their profile... whatever. If you seek me out, I figure that, like myself, you saw what I was about and liked what you saw. It came to my attention recently that that is not necessarily the case. All thes ladies who post blurbs giving directions about how to join - I can only imagine how many morons and sexed-starved psychos hit them up with "hey baby - show me your pussy! Let's do the wild thing!" I used to roll my eyes when I saw "how to be my friend" posted in a profile. I get it now.

Originally posted on MySpace Saturday, August 19, 2006 Good grief... Where do I begin? Well, the bad things that have been going on include my uncle having cancer. He went to see someone about his nose being clogged constantly about a month ago, and they found a tumor. Unfortunately it turned out to be malignant. His reaction was, "Well I've had a good life." The rest of told him, "Oh, no! We're not done with you yet!" To make this story short, the pathology showed that it was a relatively minor kind of cancer, with a very high survival rate. He had it removed, along with most of the surrounding tissue (when he breathes through his nose, the air always feels cold now) and is having a short dose of radiation therapy to ensure it's gone. He's doing fine. But when you hear that word "cancer" in relation to a family member or loved one, your heart stops, your blood runs cold, and you think the worst! My mother (it's her brother that has/had it) wasn't taking it too well for a good part of that, at least until the doctors were all breathing easy (um, so to speak). His wife also was not doing well, and probably isn't. But she's got her brave face on most of the time, and dotes on him constantly. My cousins, I know, were also worried. But when you run a $3.5 million-a-year company, and are trying to expand that further, or when you live 3 or more hours away and have 50 hours of work to do a day, it's hard to find time to go visit and say, "I love you and I'm pulling for you!" even to your dad. So he got lots of phone calls. To make matters worse, his wife lost her job, and is in her early 60's. I think they have a lot to deal with. And his second son is worried, because he wants so much (and has for a good while) to provide the money so his dad doesn't have to work anymore. Closer to home, my nephew has hit puberty, his voice is cracking, he is diagnosed as ADD (like his uncle...), he is a Boy Scout, in advnced martial arts training, has 4 advanced-level classes, is in band, has asthma, and his ADD and breathing meds and hormones seem to be at odds with each other. He has been so good at doing his homework since going back to school, but Thursday and Friday he left it for one class or another at home. He's 12. Needless to say, he had a very emotional "episode" and I ended up having to take him home (I work 30 minutes away, but have the easiest time getting away from work). A few weeks ago, my sister had gotten accused by a coworker of being a total incompetent at her job. For, like, the 100th time in 6 months. I can safely say, since we worked in the same office, run by my cousin and my mother, that it was NOT her fault. He is the screw-up. Anyway, she'd had enough of his bull----, and heard about a position with one of our vendors, applied for it, and now works for them. When she told my cousin, he was upset, but I think it was mostly because he was told one thing by the screw-up and is now finding out the truth. (There is SO MUCH MORE to that story, but I think I'll leave it for now). On top of all this (and perhaps minor by comparison) my mom, my sister and I planted a garden. Well, it's more like 5 . We have planted over $300 worth of plants, I bet, with about $200 of soil, fertilizers and pest repellent, sweated for about 3 months trying to clean out the weeds repeatedly, and for what? So we can get int o a full-blown drought, with a month's worth of 100+degree F days and water rationing, so we can struggle like hell to keep it alive and realize we're not doing very well. To switch to a happier note, our summer has been full of activity and fun as well. We went to see Phantom of the Opera in April or May - I forget which - and George Strait, Miranda Lambert and Tracy Lawrence. My sister found out that Les Misérables was coming to Dallas, the last tour ever, and started trying to find out about tickets. She found that for about $9 each per play, we could get season tickets. So we also saw Little Women, Bombay Dreams (Shelley, my sister, and I got so wrapped up in the song Chayya Chayya we learned the Urdu lyrics to it!), Les Mis of course, Mamma Mia! (which I wanted to see because all the songs are Abba songs, but it had NOTHING to do with Abba) and Brooklyn (A mild disappointment, but worth seeing once). We also went to see Journey an Def Leppard at Smirnoff Music Center in July. AWESOME concert! My mom went, and enjoyed the music, but was irritated because NOONE sat down the entire concert! My feet hurt for 4 days, and my throat hurt for almost a week!) The last of the musicals we're going to see is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which was also a movie. I loved the movie - Steve Martin and Michael Caine as con-men who bet on who can out-con the other over a rich lady - so I am looking forward to that as well. My cousin (Also my boss - did I mention that?) asked me to start calling past customers and people starting in new offices to try and generate leads for his business (the company installs and services telephone and network cabling, LAN/WAN systems, now phone and internet services, and anything else you need to automate your office). It's an opportunity to expand the revenue base and get me some commissions. It's not going great yet, but I'm working on it, and I have high hopes... There's more, but these are the high- and lowlights of the summer so far... I'll post more later. Rock on! Durham

Originally posted on MySpace Friday, June 23, 2006 This was sent to me (and judging by the headers in the message, about 6,987,244 others) yesterday by a friend (Not a close friend, mind you, or they would have cleaned up the headers which comprised about 3/4 of the message), and I felt like sharing. Sounds kind of like how Bill Cosby would have described it... To those of us who have children in our lives, whether they are our own, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or students... here is something to make you chuckle. Whenever your children are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God's omnipotence did not extend to His own children. After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing he said was "DON'T!" "Don't what?" Adam replied. "Don't eat the forbidden fruit," God said. "Forbidden fruit? We have forbidden fruit? Hey Eve..we have forbidden fruit!" "No Way! " "Yes way! " "Do NOT eat the fruit!" said God. "Why ? " "Because I am your Father and I said so!" God replied, wondering why He hadn't stopped creation after making the elephants. A few minutes later, God saw His children having an apple break and He was ticked! "Didn't I tell you not to eat the fruit?" God asked. "Uh huh," Adam replied. "Then why did you?" said the Father. "I don't know," said Eve. "She started it!" Adam said. "Did not! " "Did too! " "DID NOT! " Having had it with the two of them, God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own. Thus the pattern was set and it has never changed. BUT THERE IS REASSURANCE IN THE STORY! If you have persistently and lovingly tried to give children wisdom and they haven't taken it, don't be hard on yourself. If God had trouble raising children, what makes you think it would be a piece of cake for you? THINGS TO THINK ABOUT! 1. You spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up. 2. Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your own children. 3. Mothers of teens now know why some animals eat their young. 4. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. 5. The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own. 6. We childproofed our homes, but they are still getting in. ADVICE FOR THE DAY: Be nice to your kids. They will choose your nursing home one day. AND FINALLY: If you have a lot of child-related tension and it causes headaches, follw the directions on the pain reliever bottle: 1) Take 1 or two tablets every X hours. 2) Keep out of the reach of children! Happy Friday! Rock on! Shawn

Originally posted Tuesday, April 18, 2006 I subscribe to a few web design and development e-zines, including one called SecurityProNews. On Thursday: 04.13.06, they sent the following article by David Utter, which I though would be of interest to most of [MySpace members]. It is reposted by kind permission:

Former Microsoft child-safe computing director and federal prosecutor Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam joined Fox Interactive Media as chief security officer for MySpace. Cleaning up the wilder and sometimes more dangerous side of MySpace has received as much attention as the site itself in recent months. The website booted off some 200,000 profiles it deemed too risqu for continued viewing. Keeping tabs on the growing site became a full-time job, and Ross Levinsohn at Fox Interactive Media must have decided to treat it like that, especially if MySpace is to become the advertising magnet Fox desires. That leads to the announcement out of Fox Interactive Media that they have hired Nigam to take on the role as sheriff for the sometimes rowdy side of MySpace. Nigam takes up his new job on May 1st, and certainly appears to have the background parents want to see in someone focused on child safety online: Nigam, who currently serves as Director of Consumer Security Outreach & Child Safe Computing at the Microsoft Corporation, brings more than 15 years of experience in online safety for private industry and law enforcement, including serving as a Federal prosecutor against Internet child exploitation for the US Department of Justice, an advisor to a Congressional commission on online child safety, and an advisor to the White House on cyberstalking. Nigam's role at Microsoft has been to lead the team within Microsoft's Security Technology Unit responsible for driving consumer security outreach and child safe computing strategies. Nigam oversees outreach and partnership development with government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in online consumer safety and security. It also turns out he played a role in advising the COPA Commission, which advised Congress on the issues addressed by the Child Online Protection Act. COPA gained much more notice in the tech world when the government took Google to court in Gonzales v Google and sought to have them open their databases. Nigam's selection followed another announcement by MySpace and News Corp to help protect the younger audience from online predators. The company partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children on a series of public safety ads to help educate their audience on online safety. MySpace now has in the neighborhood of 66 million users, signing up at a rate of 250,000 a day according to Fox Interactive Media. Many of those users swell in the sweet spot of demographics: young, tech savvy, young, trend-conscious, young, and have money to spend on advertisers. Advertisers have shown great reluctance in seeing their marketing campaigns shares web-based real estate with some of the more daring or offensive content. That prompted MySpace to perform the profile purge mentioned earlier. That purge, the NCMEC sponsorship, and Nigam's appointment all help to improve the safety of MySpace. It also helps to enhance its marketability to skittish ad clients in the Fortune 500 too. About the Author: David Utter is a business and technology writer with WebProNews and SecurityProNews.

Originally posted Friday, March 17, 2006 I am really curious - do I really seem desperate? I have received messages and invites from 5 different women running adult web sites. I have nothing against them, but I'm not interested in joining them, or anything like that. I am more interested in meeting friends. I try to keep up with my Myspace "friends" (other than the musicians - I figure they are good, so I want to give them a "thumbs up"), and would like to add more and communicate with them. But I keep getting invites to pay sites. One woman even sent me a pic of her bare boobs with a note saying "I love Shawn" and a link to a pay site. So what is it about me or my profile that attracts people trying to get me to pay to let them "love" me? Why don't I get more who are interested in getting to know me? Let me know if you can enlighten me... Rock on! Durham

Originally posted Saturday, February 18, 2006 I am frustrated as anything. I have just spent 90 minutes or so trying to fing the lyrics to one of my favorite songs by Enya, "Ebudae", from Shepherd Moon. Every one of the 75 or so web sites I opened with lyrics to the song posted the 3 lines in the liner notes. Many of the sites even translated them - the same way the liner notes do. Does anyone have the wherewithal to find out just what the rest of these lyrics are? Think of it - 75 sites with no more information than what I found by reading the booklet included with the CD Shepherd Moon. Almost 90 minutes wasted trying to discover more information than immediately available, and not one datum more than what I already knew. Oh, one site printed an English version of what she sounds like she's saying in the first verse. And then repeats the same gobbldygook for the second verse, which is clearly different from the first verse! These people must be the same ones who buy their term papers from the Internet. That's another issue I have. Why would you buy a term paper from some anonymous individual through a website? First of all, how do you know you'll get an original, let alone well-written, paper which will get you a decent grade? Second, are you going to hire this same goober to write your presentation for a business sales meeting to give for a client? And what happens if either of the above audiences decide to ask you questions about the subject you (supposedly) researched? Can you say "le-hoo, ze-her?". And what about all the nitwits who send supposed virus "warnings" they receive when it's plain to the majority of users that they are false? Or forward pleas for some poor child or other deathly ill (again, supposedly) person?? Or those dumb "you'll-have-bad-luck-if-you-don't-forward-this" messages? I realize the second one is for those whose heart strings get plucked by such things, but half or more of them, and nearly all the others, are false, or forwarding the message won't do any good. A hint regarding those - http://www.snopes.com. Chain letters need to be deleted, not repeated. I would really like to find a few people on the Internet who use the brains they were given much better, instead of masses of sheep, who just use "copy-paste" or the "forward" button. Rock on! Durham

Originally posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 In the wake of news about travel issues, I dug this out to post to my blog. I think it puts a lot of things into perspective, particularly about flying. Never let it be said that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual logged maintenance complaints by QANTAS pilots and the corrective action recorded by mechanics. By the way, Qantas is supposedly the only major airline that has never had an accident. P = the problem the pilots entered in the log. S = the solution or corrective action taken by the mechanics. P: Test flight OK, except autoland very rough. S: Autoland not installed on this aircraft. P: Something loose in cockpit. S: Something tightened in cockpit. P: Dead bugs on windshield. S: Live bugs on backorder. P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200-fpm descent. S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground. P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear. S: Evidence removed. P: DME volume unbelievably loud. S: DME volume set to more believable level. P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick. S: That's what they're there for! P: IFF inoperative. S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode. P: Suspected crack in windscreen. S: Suspect you're right. P: Radar hums. S: Reprogrammed radar with words. P: Mouse in cockpit. S: Cat installed. And my favorite: P: Aircraft handles funny. S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious. These sound like they were written by me... ---------------------- And since I am in such a serious mood today, I felt I should also post a recipe for fruitcake I posted as a bulletin the day I posted this blog entry (which my sister also decided to post as a bulletin) Although this has made the rounds before, sometimes it's hard to find that perfect recipe for a special occasion. I give you this for the next season. Let me know how it works if you try it... Fruitcake Recipe 1 cup water 1 cup sugar 4 large eggs 2 cups dried fruit 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup brown sugar lemon juice nuts 1 gallon whiskey Sample the whiskey to check for quality. Take a large bowl. Check the whiskey again to be sure it is of the highest quality. Pour one level cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer; beat 1 cup butter in a large, fluffy bowl. Add 1 teaspoon sugar and beat again. Make sure the whiskey is still OK. Cry another tup. Turn off mixer. Break 2 legs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the whiskey to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of salt. Or something. Who cares? Check the whiskey. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever you can find. Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window. Check the whiskey again. Go to bed. Who likes fruitcake anyway? Rock on! Durham