http://www.getridofthings.com/

Dingo's Den in Clifton, NJ during the day, photo found on the Web.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Coming off the Garden State Parkway, Pam and me had followed the GPS through a maze of dark residential streets. We rounded the corner onto Van Houten Avenue to find the street in front of the Dingo’s Den choked with bodies and motorcycles. This tiny place was hosting the Hells Angels Winter Party?

We eased the truck past, found parking several blocks away, walked back. A passing outbound girl warned that it was “very, very crowded and hot” inside. “As long as the beer’s cold,” I thought. We pressed on.

Inside was packed. And loud. But service was good and soon we were in the back near the band, beers in hand. It had been quite a while since I’d been in a club like this. Dark, dirty, jammed with people, fleeting smells – some recognizable and some not –  and seriously loud. The kind of loud that required shouting over, and even then… I missed it. A lot.

We only had the time to take in two of the four bands. Ghost & the Big Sky was first. Very good, tight drums & bass with competent guitar work. Then Trailer Park Mafia. Their 70s/80s metal renditions were instantly familiar. They did a blazing version of Motorhead’s Ace of Spades.

Soon enough it was time to go. Somehow, the outside world seemed much, much quieter.

The shortening made perfect sense in 2009 and even in the 1900s. Speaking the year shortened from twenty-oh-nine to just plain oh-nine was perfectly understandable. And if you mention the sixties then everyone (regardless of whether or not they actually remember the 1960s) knows what exactly you’re talking about.

Would anyone in their right mind say two-oh-ten? Because to say twenty-oh-ten is just wrong. Eighteen thousand years into the future wrong.

Do you think IPv6 will be around in 18,000 years?

There’s this file that’s always open in my favorite editor, ready to capture anything that strikes my fancy. I was clearing it out and found these delightful videos.

Some folks think I’m nuts for riding motorcycles here in Jersey. I submit that by comparison to this stuff, I might as well be just another old fart relaxing in the Barcalounger. Go grab a fresh cup of coffee and have a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98jCBnWO8w
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a11_1239425564
http://vimeo.com/1527459
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1778399&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1

Whew!

There’s nothing like a trip through airport security to brighten your day. How airport security ties into a story about beer, well, you’ll just have to wait and see!

The laws for alcohol consumption vary greatly by region. For example, quaff your Bud while walking the street in New Jersey and you’re pretty much guaranteed a night in jail. Yet as long as they’re not actually consuming alcohol, a minor can sit at a Jersey bar all day long and suffer only boredom. In Las Vegas, though, things are different. Sin City, they call the place. You can walk down the street with a beer (or anything else!) and no one will bat an eye. But bartenders’ nervousness increases proportional to the time that minors sit anywhere near a bar. Same with the casino games, by the way. They’re serious about their anti-loitering laws. (No matter that I witnessed apparent elementary school aged kids pulling slots, that’s another story. Officially, they care.)

Planter / Bottle Opener

We picked up a six-pack of beer on our way back to the suite. That’s an expensive proposition on Las Vegas Blvd., nearly twice what we’re used to paying. I don’t know if it was the heat of the street or if they were just selling warm beer out of the cooler, but in short order the beer was warm as piss and quite useless. What to do? Stuff it in the fridge (ah, the advantages of a suite with a wet bar!) and find something else to do, knowing it’ll be good to go in the morning.

And it was. Our beer of choice, though, requires an opener and – oops – we were lacking. Now a lack of opener doesn’t necessarily equal a lack of ingenuity, so the search was on. Our opener turned out to be disguised as a potted plant on a wrought iron stand.

You wouldn’t know by just looking, but there’s a remarkable similarity between that plant stand and the rear bumper of a ’64 Chevy Impala!

Maybe there was just the tiniest bit of spillage but I won’t tell if you won’t! That worked until we remembered to buy an opener; it only took a couple of days. We chose a souvenir opener modeled after a bottle, filled with a viscous liquid, with icons of Las Vegas (chips, dice, etc.) floating within. A magnet on the side would hold it to our fridge, a colorful and happy reminder of this particular adventure.

The second time (but not the first!) that we passed through LAS security Pam got dinged for our souvenir bottle opener. Not because of the metal end, oh no, it was the liquid content of the thing. No matter that she only had one. No matter that we ALL only had one of them between us. No matter that it was clearly a sealed piece of plastic. They must have seen millions of them over the years! No, none of that mattered in the least. The TSA agent was determined.

There were choices, of course. Leave the security area and arrange to mail it back. Leave the security area and return to ticketing, (try to) have the agent retrieve our checked bags to add the contraband. Or surrender the item. And that’s what we chose to do. A four-dollar (plus tax – 8% tax at that) plastic doo-dad just ain’t worth three trips through airport security in less than a day! DOA, that’s what she called it. That dangerous little thing was dutifully tossed into DOA. It looked like a trash bin to me. Black. Rubbermaid.

Dangerous Terrorist Souvenir

Before I left the area I told the agent the story and asked for a picture. Maybe I was hoping she’d change her mind. Maybe hearing the story, holding the thing again, having another look would change her mind. Nope, it didn’t work. She reached into the DOA bin and retrieved the offending trinket, but she wouldn’t let me touch it. I got my picture, but she wouldn’t even allow her hands to appear in the image. She smiled, but firmly held her position.

We boarded the tram to the gates.

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/can-do/

Thanks, Tim!

Last night I enjoyed a new experience and, well, it led to some rather unexpected results. I visited a karaoke bar!

Okay, go ahead, label me deprived or something. The fact is, it’s been more than a few years since I stopped hanging out in bars for the sake of just hanging out. The activity just doesn’t hold a whole lot of appeal for me. Sure, I did my share of it back in the day but I’ve usually got way better things to do with my time. So almost every time I find myself in that environment I learn something. And karaoke… I guess it’s a trend that just passed me by.

Here’s my basic interpretation of how it works. The establishment primes its customers with alcohol while playing loud music. I think it has to be loud so that everyone needs to shout to converse. It gets the voice primed. The alcohol serves as lubricant. Then they open the mike. The operator (or MC, I guess – what do you call the guy who guides the show?) sets up the songs and works the equipment. He seemed to have the ability to mix the song’s actual vocals back in so that more reserved participants would have a little help. Lyrics are displayed on strategically placed video monitors. Available songs could be chosen from a large binder – a couple of them, actually – that could be found on the bar. The night progressed and the lubricity rose, with mostly predictable results. A couple of people were actually pretty good. Most were not, but all were entertaining to one degree or another.

Before you ask, no, I didn’t take the mike at any point, which was probably a good thing for the other patrons. I must confess, though, before the night was over I did peruse the binder of songs. The lubrication, in the form of a few Coronas, was working as expected. Had I found some Zappa I might have given it a whirl. And that leads right into the unexpected results I mentioned earlier.

Time and time again I was surprised – astounded, actually – by song lyrics. Everything I knew was wrong! Top-40, metal, didn’t matter. Stuff I kind of thought I maybe sort of knew? Nope.

I’ll never listen to music the same way again.

There’s one tune, maybe some kind of rap, that I hear kinda regularly on the satellite station at the gym. It sounds to me like they’re chanting about making and eating some kind of soup. I guess I’m wrong about that one, too.

Friends have been telling me to get on and companies seem to be letting me know they’re on so I figured I’d give it a whirl.

Just to squat on it, I’ve taken my company name (sshhhh – squatting violates Terms of Service), and I’ve also taken another for personal use, whch is where I’m doing some, um, evaluation. Yeah, that’s it.  Evaluation.

Find me on Twitter here.

First up is this collection of help desk tickets from hell – and beyond:
http://chroniclesofgeorge.nanc.com/

Those of you that ride know how tough it can be to catch the attention of cagers on the road, seemingly single-minded in their desire to ruin your day by killing you. Well, how about this nifty holographic projector priced just a tad over five large. The folks over at Aerostich like to have a little fun with their catalogs by adding fictional items. Gotta love their sense of humor.
http://www.aerostich.com/catalog/US/Holographic-Vehicle-Projector-p-17408.html

With all the uproar over DRM it’s always nice to find good music from good folks with a good attitude, and www.ucalldatmusic.com is just such a place. Here’s a sample:
http://www.ucalldatmusic.com/mp3files/naked.mp3

And if that ain’t enough then there’s this oldie-but-goodie that always gets a smile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwxBt1sW63c

Hot on the heels of my mention of OS/2 under VMware, I had some fun looking back at old GUIs at Nathan’s Toasty Technology site. Go have a smile. Or a grimace. Your choice.
http://toastytech.com/guis/

Wondering where you can get that mug that’ll show you mean business at your next infernal staff meeting? The folks over at Think Geek will fix you right up.

There! That felt better than what’s really on my mind. I swear, I can’t get through the morning news anymore without blowing a gasket. I mean, with all this bailout crap I feel like I’m being penalized for deciding decades ago to live my life in a fiscally responsible manner. I’m thinking I should have partied it all away instead and let others pick up the pieces. Might have even gotten a bonus……