Saw The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra with the SNFC last night. The movie was awesome, and it is highly recommended… It’s one of those films which will infest the world with new catchphrases only used by the elite who have seen the film.

I’m back in NJ now, still haven’t heard anything regarding the job at Goodrich, but it’s still pretty soon after… They might have even had today off for the holiday.

The other day I asked my father to turn on my Mac back at home so I could grab some files off of it for my job interview. I grabbed the files, and was about to shut the machine back down when I decided that it might be a better idea to try and put it to sleep, and then set up Wake-on-LAN so I could bring it back when I needed it. I installed a VNC server on the machine so I could access the GUI. I found a simple Perl script that takes a MAC address as an argument and send the “Magic Packet” there to wake the machine. I tested this and it worked like a champ.

For the past few days I have been firing up a VNC client to put the Mac back to sleep, since I couldn’t figure out a way to do it from the command-line, but today I found this utility which does exactly that. So now I can wake the machine up and put it back to sleep from the command-line, which is pretty nice.. I wonder if my Mom, who is probably sleeping in my room back home, thinks the machine is possessed?

So that, combined with SSH tunnelling, gives me a secure way to access both my workstation and the webserver running on my TiVo (so I can schedule recordings and review what it has recorded, in case I want to delete any of the programs).

Does anyone know of an RSS aggregator for Windows that is comparable to NetNewsWire on the Mac? I am currently using SharpReader and it feels kinda hokey..

1. Are you superstitious? Not really, but do obey some common protocols of superstition (knock/touch wood, etc). But even though I participate, it is more for social reasons than actual belief.
2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition? My mother works in a psych emergency room and she says the crazies really come out on a full moon.
3. Believer or not, what’s your favorite superstition? Friday the 13th, just because everyone starts acting retarded.
4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual? I don’t really believe in luck until things have been going shittily for me for awhile… :)
5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not? Not in the least. So the position of the planets/stars has an effect on your fate when you are born. The gravity of the body of the doctor delivering you is stronger than that of even the closest planet to us. If some astrologist can prove that some force other than gravity is effecting us, I might give them the time of day (although I’d still call bullshit).

I’m still really wound up from my interview over at Goodrich. Things went well, as far as I can tell, so now I just have to sit and wait to hear from them. I interviewed with 5 people, including Garrett and Steve Schaffer, who I don’t really know that well but worked at RIT on SOFIA with , , and before I started my co-op there. It’s one big happy nepotistic family (at least I hope it is.. :P). In order to get this job, however, there will be very detailed reference checking, so those of you who I have worked for/with, don’t be surprised if you are contacted.

A job would be really, really good right about now.

I simply am unable to comprehend the current debate over Gay Marriage. Here are my incoherent thoughts on the subject:

First of all, I’d like to make my position on the subject clear. I could care less what two consenting people do with their genitals/lives. Happiness is tough to find, and if you find happiness in the arms of a member of the same sex, more power to you. Do I get a bit weirded out when I see two gays/lesbians making out in the subway? Sure… But that’s my problem, not theirs, and besides, I also get weirded out when two heteros are making out in public…. Public Displays of Affection are always awkward for everyone but the two people engaged in them. But lets get this train back on track.

Do I support same-sex marriage? Of course. There is no reason why a segment of the population should be outcast and ostracized.

The Children? What about the children? Well, if you ask me, I can’t see how a gay couple could possibly do a worse job of raising a child than a hetero couple, and two average gays could certainly do a better job than an orphanage. There are plenty of orphaned kids floating around today, and plenty of gay couples looking to raise them. How could a couple willing to take in a child do a worse job that one who concieved one by accident in the back of their Ford Fiesta?

The Sanctity of Marriage? Come on, the divorce rate is astronomical, I think the entire concept of the sanctity of marriage is pretty tarnished already. If marriage was simply a religious concept at this point, then this would be a non-issue. But there are so many advantages and laws set up to protect married couples that the religious and public concepts of marriage are intimately intertwined nowadays. If the Catholic Church doesn’t want to recognize gay marriage, that’s their deal, but the government should have to. Anything less is bigotry. What about two atheists? Are they allowed to get married? Of course they are, so why not two guys/girls who genuinely love each other?

Just the notion that Massachusetts and the US Government are considering their respective constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage (I’m sorry, to “define marriage as that which is entered by a man and a woman”) is nauseating. How can our lawmakers possibly think that it is OK to explicitly deny rights to a segment of the population? I just hope that the public isn’t as ignorant as our lawmakers..

Yesterday, before going to Cambridge, I painted ’s “closet” (it isn’t actually a closet, but I can’t think of anything else to call it, so it’s a closet -- It’s the big open former doorway to the right of the picture). She mentioned that she really wanted to have it painted so she could put some stuff away, so I figured I would take care of it. I have never really painted anything before, but I just guessed at the process and it came out pretty well. I am not painting the trim, though, so she can deal with that. :P She didn’t have a roller pan (well, she had one, but it was being used to catch water from the still-dripping radiator), so I just used a brush. Needless to say, she was pretty excited when she got home from school yesterday (I wasn’t here, but she called me).

Today, I did the same for the hall, which was a bigger area but seemed to go a bit faster (probably because I optimized the process a bit more). I also fixed the mounting of her intercom panel, which was barely attached to the wall. Now she has a ton of trim to work on, but that seems pretty straightforward, if not more tedious.

I have that interview tomorrow, which is for an aerospace company, and the job sounds pretty cool. Apparenlty there aren’t many (any) other people interviewing for the position, and there are multiple positions open, so hopefully my chances are good. It probably helps that the first person I am talking with tomorrow is Garrett. :)

I’d personally like to thank the White House’s Video Pool for the hearing test.

In other news, I have an interview tomorrow morning in Lexington, hopefully that will go well. I also need to see this movie.

I have a copy of the book that I have yet to read, but many of my friends really enjoyed Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. While the meta-idea behind the book (retelling of a popular story from a different angle)doesn’t appeal to me, so many people have recommended the book to me that I decided to read it. Unfortunately, the book has sat on a shelf for over a year now.

There is a new broadway musical based on the book.

When cleaning the kitchen, my mom came across a Blockbuster gift card for \$50. She said to use it because after a certain period of time it started to lose value. After 24 months from the date of purchase the card loses \$2/month, and today I found out it was only worth \$46, which means that the card has been poking around for several Christmases. :) In order to stem this bleeding of value and I spent the whole thing. We rented the following discs:

• High Fidelity
• Super Troopers
• Auto Focus
• Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 1 - Disc 1

I also picked up the following used discs ultra-cheap:

• House of 1000 Corpses
• 28 Days Later

I hadn’t seen any of the films we rented. So far we watched High Fidelity and Super Troopers. High Fidelity was pretty good, but the ending was kind of abrupt. Super Troopers I picked up after hearing a bunch of CSHers talk about it (I don’t remember who), but it ended up being a good, silly rental, but nothing spectacular. 28 Days Later was won of my favorite films of 2003, and House of 1000 Corpses was up there too.

is trying to convince me to take a bogus job at Radio Shack up here in Boston. I am torn about the idea, for the following reasons:

• While it sucks being turned down for a real job like the one at Red Hat, I have to say that not even being acknowledged by the Video Stores, Liquor Stores, and Video Game Stores that I have applied for in/around Hopatcong is downright humiliating. I’m not sure if I can take any more of that nonsense.
• It’s awesome being up here, but I’d feel like more of a welch living here than I would with my parents. I guess if I had a job, even at Radio Shack, I would feel like less of a dickhead. Coco says I could stay here for free, but it just seems like that would be weird.
• I don’t even know how much Rat Shack pays, and if it would be enough to keep up with my bills and still feed myself.
• It would be rad to be up here with Corinna.

Since I have had absolutely no luck getting even the most menial job in Hopatcong, I guess I should apply at Radio Shack. We’ll see what they say. Garrett is supposedly getting me an interview at his work, but he’s been out of town on business so I haven’t heard back from him yet. Hopefully something will work out there. I’m just completely fucking tired of doing nothing all day and feeling like I am not producing anything worth a god-damn for the world. At least selling RCA jacks would be a bit better than watching the paint dry all day.

I’m sure some people reading this will have opinions on this one, so feel free to voice them (i’m definitely listening)…. :)