Fox MUD is undergoing big changes. One of them includes a site move! Watch this space for more coming up!

A commercial I heard on the radio this morning had me cracking up in the car. It's a commercial for Consumer Freedom, an anti-activist site that purports to weigh the truth vs. media-hype about things like caffeine, red meat and snack foods. I won't weigh or measure the web site's views for you...that's for you to decide. But I thought the commercial(s) was/(were) funny.

Just got back from vacation. One of the things we did on vacation was take a 2 day cruise with Imperial Majesty The cruise was fun. If you're going on a cruise, I would give you a few tips...email me. But apart from the minor dissapointments, I was overall pleased, especially with the service provided by many of those onboard, most notably our dinner waiter, Myknos, who was wonderful both days in whipping up something for my wife when she wasn't completely pleased with the dinner menu. The thing that suprised me but shouldn't have, was the international flavor of the crew. The entertainment on board was great, but Romanian accented Country and Western is still kind of silly sounding.

Annoyance of the Day - I was perhaps a tad tired, but I just had the most dreadful experience with the new Target store at Springfield Mall. In the electronics department, under video games was a posted sign for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3: Game Boy Advance version. We were purchasing the game for our son so that he would have something new to play in the car on long trips. The sign read something along the lines of "Free Snack Pack when you buy this game, a Medium Icee, Small Popcorn and Hot Dog. Offer good while supplies last, no rainchecks - 3/10-3/16. See Electronics Department for details."

So, I asked the Electronics employee who was selling me the game. The employee appeared to have no clue. Neither did the other two who were working in that department. Finally, he hazarded a guess and told me to just take the receipt to the Target snack bar, and they would be aware of the promotion and give me the snacks. I asked him if he was sure, and he said yes. Further prompting him to attempt to get him to rethink his answer brought no additional incentive to actually attempt to find what I was hoping he would.

I walked to the Snack Bar with the fore-knowledge that this wasn't going to work. But I figured, I needed to work within their system, and perhaps the snack bar people really were less clueless than the electronics folks. I waited in line at the snack bar, and when I got to the beginning of the line, I communicated my desire for the promotional snack pack, complete with my receipt from the purchase. The cashier walked over to the snack bar manager with my receipt in hand. The snack bar manager looked at me like I was the Purple People Eater, shaking her head vigorously no at me while surely telling the cashier that I was some kind of thief after free goods.

This just sent me over the top. Putting on my disgusted customer face and tone, I told her that in no uncertain terms that either they should get their act together, or that the folks in Electronics had better. I asked for a store manager and made it perfectly clear within a 2 mile radius that "I do not like being made to look stupid", ignoring the irony that I was most likely doing a better job than they were at that particular task.

The snack foods manager offered to walk with me to the electronics department, probably to take those fools head on if necessary, for attempting to pawn me over on her department, under the guise of "Show me, sir, where this offer is". After arriving in electronics and showing her the display sign, which she read quite clearly and carefully, she repeats the offer aloud to the electronics personnel.

The same guy that sold me the game, and sent me to her department in the first place says aloud, "It's only if you buy THAT game, sir." I quickly supress the urge to jump over their brand new cashier station and kill the #!#@#!#! idiot where he stands. "I bought that game.." "Oh you did?" -incredulous looks from both of us, his likely from the realization that I would actually do that, and mine from trying to realize just what in the hell our creator was smoking the day He created this loser.-

Food center manager speaks up - She tells Electronics that they should take the sign down, because "of the date" (I hate to repeat myself, but I'll save you the backward glance - today is 3/16 and the sign says the offer is from 3/10-3/16). They argue that it IS in fact 3/16 and that the offer includes today. Too late, her shields are at full power - she claims it means UNTIL 3/16 and walks off toward her department with me close behind. She tries to explain some nonsense to me about how the computers (she never ONCE consulted a computer during this ordeal) remove the offer on the last day, and that is why the problem exists. By now, the vindication of being right has cooled me down. We get back to the food center, and I accept the goodies with just the slightest smirky smile. All the while she is putting together a snack pack, she is on the walkie-talkie with some manager, to see if she should take (or at least copy) my receipt in return for the snacks. Of course, the receipt itself had no mention whatsoever of any such deal.

Just had to get that off my chest.

Ok, vote for which me is better (email)New Me or Old Me (not counting the fuzzy picture..)

Just a word on search engines and Usenet. If you've been around the Internet as long as I have (or longer), you already know about Usenet - the original message boards that predate TCP/IP and all this fancy network card stuff. - Plenty of primers on what Usenet is and how it can be accessed are out there. Dejanews at one point was the premier archive of old Usenet messages, then sold out to Google. Google has done amazing things with the archive, and if you need an answer to a question, you'll likely find the answer in an old Usenet post. Here is an example Google Search on pine reply-to how to configure that I recently did - and the answer was in the second message on the list. No way we could have had this kind of knowledge base in the 80s... The Internet continues to amaze me.

You've got to see this! This picture and caption on this page is funny as hell - Cisco Ninja Web Page.

I'm coding again in my spare time (ok, maybe even in my not-so-spare time). But I LOVE to code. I'm fixing functionality and debugging code for Fox MUD, an online MMORPG, (MultiUser Dungeon/Domain = MUD). It's a text based equivalent to Everquest or such things. In fact, Everquest is based on MUD techniques and technology. So, anyways, visit the link to see some of the Javascript and CGI stuff I've also been picking up on the side.

KPMG should know that I have a strict letter-writing policy. In fact, in order to write a letter or email message to me, you must FIRST call me on the telephone to let me know what you are writing and when I can expect to receive it. Failure to do so gives me the right to bill you $500. Oh, and it shall henceforth be against the rules to give directions to my home without my express written permission, even if you are giving directions to someone who has my address and is already in a vehicle.
Failure to comply with these directives shall be treated as an attempt to send me unauthorized mail, and since this notice is posted on the page that they will likely complain about, I consider them fairly warned that I did not welcome their communication.
Email, on the other hand, shall remain unaffected. Thank you for your time and patience.

A personal project I have been working on. I'm learning cgi/perl form processing and some javascript (dynamic table sorts and such). For a look-see, visit the Fox MUD Web Site.