Never done Jun 23, 2005
Those of you who read my blog and visit my site (probably about 2 people) might notice that stuff keeps changing.  The content doesn't really change, just the formatting.  Here's why:  a website is never "done".  It's only "ready for viewing".  That's what's cool about CSS and PHP/SQL.  You can change the look of your entire site just by changing a few things in a single CSS file or in a few PHP includes.  Plus, with SQL (not that I know much about it), information is stored in a database and accessed by the PHP files.  All I have to do is change the PHP files to display it differently. #technology
Thin Mints Jun 23, 2005
Thin Mints are probably one of the best foods ever created.  Fresh minty goodness covered by sweet chocolate.  Oh yes.  I have some in my desk.  Their website says, "Thin chocolate wafers dipped in a rich chocolaty coating with a burst of pure peppermint oil."  Peppermint oil.  That sounds weird.  I like my description better. #food
Brake Jun 23, 2005
So it turns out that I have a problem with people who overuse their brakes while driving.  [I know, I know.  Am I happy with anything?]  I don't see the point in slowing down if there's really no reason to slow down other than to obey the speed limit, especially when gravity will cause you to slow down anyway.  For example, there's a hill on Route 10 near Ledgewood that's pretty steep.  The speed limit is 50 mph.  Coasting down the hill usually brings me to about 65 mph.  At the bottom of the hill, the car begins to slow back down to normal speed.  Yet people insist on wasting their brakes by maintaining a steady 50 mph all the way down the hill.  Here's my justification for not braking:  by not applying my brakes, I'm saving brake fluid and other related car parts.  In addition, I'm saving some ever-increasingly-expensive gasoline by eliminating the need to accelerate once I've reached the bottom of the hill.  By using the speed gained from going down that hill, I can coast for miles.  Think of how much gas could be saved by using energy generated by momentum.  Uh oh...random math proof:  let's say I can coast for a solid (1) mile with the momentum gained from coasting down the hill.  Let's say my car gets 25 miles per gallon.  Let's also assume that my car uses no gas when coasting (this is obviously not true, but it is true for hybrid cars).  So if I coast for that 1 mile without using the gas pedal, I will have saved 1/25 (0.04) gallons of gas.  Let's assume gas is $2 per gallon.  That's a savings of $0.08.  Not too much.  Now apply that to rush hour traffic.  Let's say 100 cars do this exact thing.  That's a savings of 4 gallons of gas, which amounts to $8.  To make it even more realistic, let's say that 500 cars do this exact thing every day for 1 month.  That's 500 cars x 30 days x 0.04 gallons, which is 600 gallons of gas, which amounts to $1200.  Now we're talking. #math
Reply all (3) Jun 22, 2005
Oh man.  This kills me.  I work at a place that uses a lot of emailing lists.  I get 20-30 useless emails a day that are sent to a list which I neither signed up for nor can unsubscribe from.  They basically unsolicited though they're internal.  And somehow, oh somehow, there's at least 1 idiot per day who clicks on "Reply to All" instead of "Reply".  How is this possible?  Do these people have any semblance of intelligence?  I feel like I'm surrounded by idiots.  They double click on links in web browsers (you only need to click once); they keep referring to this anomaly called WordPerfect (though it hasn't been in use for a decade); they say "fire off an email" (where'd that come from?); they open up attachments in their own emails before they send them (because "sometimes they don't go through"); they call the computer people when they have computer problems (ha!).  Oh the list goes on.  Somebody just did a reply-to-all.  So this is what I sent to him:
John,

I've randomly chosen you as the person to answer my question:  when you responded to the original email, how did you "Reply to All"?  Did your mouse slip, making you click on "Reply to All" or did you just not realize you clicked it?  I'm serious here; I can't figure out how people do this.

Thanks,
Dave
(No you don't know me)
Who knows, maybe I'll get a real answer and everything will make sense.  Maybe I'm overlooking some very simple reasoning behind this phenomenon.  Or maybe I'll get fired. #technology
Honey Wheat Jun 21, 2005
Nope, not beer.  I'm talking about Rold Gold Honey Wheat Braided Twists.  These things are awesome.  So awesome that I started a new category in my blog:  Food.  They're pretzels coated with a little honey.  Sweet and salty.  Great combination. #food
Music (1) Jun 20, 2005
It must be an easy life for people who like stupid music.  They just turn on the radio and listen to whatever worthless nonsense is being broadcast.  "Ooh Jay Z!  Sweet!" ... "I love Ricky Martin!  I wish this song was on all the time!"  Idiots!  You just eat whatever's fed to you!  Try to have an original thought!  Develop a "taste" for music.  Don't say you like "anything" or "whatever."  That's so stupid. 

[This angry post stems from my (and Mike O's -- comment on this, I know you read it) judgment of people based on their taste in music.  (I know this isn't nice, but it's how it is).  An easy way to classify people is to ask them what type of music they like.  The most common and typical answer is "I like everything," which actually means that they only like rap and pop.  Therefore, they get tossed aside into the "I like everything" category to remind us to not talk about music with this person anymore, seeing that they'll just regurgitate the meaningless drivel that pours out over radio waves.] #entertainment
Age (1) Jun 17, 2005
Hypothesis:  The older you get, the faster time goes by. 

Explanation:  The first day you're born lasts 100% of your life up to that point.  The second day you're alive lasts 50% of your life up to that point.  This pattern continues, and it works out that every day of your life is equal 1/n of your life, where n is how many days you've been alive.  So when I was 5 years old, I had been alive for ~1825 days.  The day of my birthday was 1/1825 of my life.  Let's make it even easier by using years.  When I was 5 years old, the time between my 3rd and 4th birthdays was equal to 1/5 of my life, or 20%.  When I was 20, the time between my 3rd and 4th birthdays was equal to 1/20 of my life, or 5%.  So when I'm 100, the time between my 3rd and 4th birthdays will be equal to 1/100 of my life, or 1%.  A day when I was 2 lasted for 0.137% of my life.  A day when I was 20 lasted for 0.0137% of my life. 

Conclusion:  The older you are, the smaller of a percentage of your life is taken up by an equal amount of time.  Therefore, you can't say, "This has been the longest day of my life."  It's just not true. #math
PHP gallery Jun 15, 2005
I found another great PHP script at cker.name that automatically generates a photo gallery when placed in a directory containing pictures.  It automatically creates thumbnails and displays them in rows and columns.  Great, simple tool.  I'm hosting it here. #technology
This site best viewed in IE (4) Jun 15, 2005
Unfortunately, this site is best viewed in Internet Explorer.  Sorry all you Firefox fans.  I like Firefox too, but certain things look different, and I can't figure out how to make everything look exactly the same in different browsers.  Maybe someone can help:  Microsoft interprets the margin property as meaning the space inside a div, whereas Mozilla interprets it as the space outside a div.  The opposite is true for padding.  Why is that? #technology
Future Jun 15, 2005
Why is it that everything in life is done for the purpose of something in the future?  We go to nursery school to get ready for kindergarden.  We go to high school to prepare for college.  We go to college to get a job.  We get a job to prepare for retirement.  [I wonder what retirement is for.]  When am I supposed to do something for now?  If I keep following this system, I'll be dead before I can finally do something for the current time/situation.    This is why I refuse to "dress for the job you want, not the job you have."  That's just stupid.  I'm gonna dress however the heck I want.  What can they do, fire me because they don't like how I dress?  Will I not get that mandatory promotion they promised me after a year or two?  Screw the system.  I'm doing what I want. #psychology