The EEE PC Day 1

I was walktzing down the hall today at the hospital past the supply man with a cart of stuff, and he had something for me. My EEE PC had arrived a full four days ahead of schedule. As busy as this day was I still managed to find some time to play with my new toy.

Out of the box, I was pretty impressed with this little device. I have the 4G Surf model which has the smallest screen and keyboard of the bunch, but with 4GB of SSD flash versus 2GB. The default Operating System was "not bad", but it had all the makingd of kids computer. If Webkinz made an OS it would probably look a little like that. There were great big buttons spread amongst four tabs or so for launching applications. These ranged from Instant Messaging and multimedia stuff to limited "work" applications like Abiword. If this was the OS you were stuck with, these little machines would have never taken off.

Within 10 minutes or so I had decided that I was ready for a real operating system. With that, I got a copy of eeeXubuntu and ran through an installation. It was a bit cumbersome because I was unable to boot to my external CD-ROM drive as I had hoped. Instead, I had to use a thumbdrive to install from. This involved getting everything off my thumbdrive and creating a backup with 'dd'. Then I booted up to the eeeXubuntu live disc using a PC on my desk. Next I repartitioned and formatted my thumbdrive as a FAT16 drive - and ran a script from the CD-ROM to create a bootable and installable thumbdrive. From there - the install to my EEE PC was cake.

While the installation took the better part of an hour, once it was complete I was quite impressed with the speed. Booting seemed to take less than 30 seconds or so, and running applications was pretty pleasing. I've never spent much time using the default window manager 'xfce' but I will probably hold onto it a while. It's very thin, and there's not much eye candy. But the speed that you get is amazing.

With a good functional OS I tempted fate and installed all available updates. I did not do the 'dist-upgrade' as I have heard that certain things will be broken if you move up to the hardy release (current eeeXubunt runs gutsy 7.10). My updates finished at 5:00PM and I was out the door.

Since then, it's been a battle getting kismet installed. I am anxious to get back to wardriving but a wifi scanning app is essential. There are all sorts of issues with Kismet, madwifi, and the eee PC in general. From what I have read, people have got it working by mising new and old libraries and deb packages. I'm not sure I like that idea, so I have stuck to attempts. I got the latest Kismet source and built it pretty easily. It runs, detects my card, and gives no complaints ... but then it doesn't display anything. Of course, it also cripples the wireless driver which is rather typical for putting a device into monitor mode. Doing some more reading I found someone had posted a command to put things back in order and save a reboot ... 'wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta'.

And now, as I get ready for bed I thought "why not break this thing in and Blog a bit". The keyboard is definitely awkward being so small ... but the first keyboard I ever used was a lot like this (TRS-80 Color Computer). I think the 3-Com Audrey keyboard was also about this size. I'm probably chucking out typos a-plenty - but fuck spell checking. There also seems to be some running joke about finding punctuation marks on this thing, but since it's marked so well - it shouldn't take you any more than 10 minutes to become acustomed to the layout.

I look forward to the adventures I will have with this little toy.

*EDIT* It's tough to go to bed with a job unfinsihed. After reading a few entries to the Kismet mailing list, I found that my madwifi driver needed an option to be passed to it at the time it is loaded for Kismet to run properly. I will spare you the bloody details. If you are interested however, you can read this post from the eeeuser.com forums.

Tomorrow - we wardrive.

Blog Upkeeping

I was digging through a drawer a few days ago and I came across a "web server backup" that I had made in late 2005. At that time, I was still administering a web server from work which I used to host Gloop.net. The domain name, and the server, have both long since been dead and forgotten. With them went a lot of pictures that I had put in my blog over the years. I have always been a little sad that my older blog posts are now photo-less and plagued with dead link boxes.

Vowing to fix the image problem, I slowly began to work my way through old blog posts identifying the images that are now dead, and fixing them by uploading them to Blogger (which actually uses Picassa to store them). Hopefully Blogger.com will outlive me, and I never have to worry about repairing dead links again.

I was only halfway through the year 2003 when I realised that my Blog has some other problems. Namely that my commenting feature has always been hosted by Haloscan.com. At the time I started my blog, the Blogger service did not have a commenting feature. This of course predates when Google bought them ... and it was before Wordpress ever came into existence. In it's hayday, Haloscan served me well. These days, their servers are slow as hell and add what seems like a 45 second delay to my page loadings.

I have spent a good two to three hours copying those Halsoscan comments and pasting them into my Blogger entries. So if you are rolling back in time and reading old Blog entries they will appear in the post as "Historic Comments". Future comments will now be hosted by Blogger! I could have just switched to Blogger comments, and dumped the old ones. But I love reading those old comments from my friends. :-)

I also dropped a new theme overtop of the old one, which I have probably had for at least 3 years .... maybe longer. It's not what I want - but I will work on that later. Now, I need to cook dinner. I'm making Strombolli!

The Audrey Legacy

Long ago my wife and I each took $100 to buy ourselves something. She bought herself ... shit I forget. But I went right onto eBay and bought myself a 3-COM Audrey. I had a lot of fun with that damned thing. I would sit up in bed with it with the kick-stand down, and the tiny little keyboard on my belly chatting with a Jabber client that I had compiled to run on it, and irc-ii. Good times. I called it "Audrey".

After a while I got bored with my little network appliance, and I needed a meaner toy. I was in the market for something that had wireless capability so that I could explore this phenomenon known as "war-driving". I bought myself a Mac off of eBay. It was a toilet-seat iBook model. In fact, it was the original iBook. I drug it *EVERYWHERE* and I still use it every other day or so to check e-mail or surf the web from bed. It became my new best friend, and I nick-named it "Audrey II" (a play on the broadway show and film, Little Shop of Horrors).

Many years have passed, and I have not since had an electronic gadget great enough to carry the Audrey nickname. But that is about to change.

Today my boss called me from her office, which she does often. It's a little strange, because she sits about 10 feet away from me. But she doesn't like people bothering her, so she often locks herself into her office to get work done. When she calls one of us, we all hear both sides of the conversation. This is humorous, but not relevant to this story. My boss says "I need to order two laptops, but I have no Windows XP option ... so I may have to get them with Vista". I said "that's fine, but get me one too would ya?". She laughed and hung up.

Then I drafted an e-mail to her. I told her that I desperately needed a highly portable laptop which I could take on runs with me around the hospital. It would have to have a decent battery life, a small display, and if possible a non-mechanical hard drive. I chose the Asus EEE PC with a 4GB flash drive. I sent her a link with all the purchasing information she would need to buy it for me. I have sent her requests like these before and she usually just deletes them. But today - she called me into her office. Then she called my cohort into the office and had him look at it. She asked my cohort, "does he need this?". He took a look and replied, "oh yeah ... absolutely ... that would be perfect for what he needs". And with that, she processed the quote and ordered me one.

I really need a small laptop for making small network changes, and for remotely connecting to servers while standing inside wiring closets. But I also need a new toy which I can take on war-driving expeditions.

Don't tell my boss, but she may have just bought me Audrey III.

Ray might be back in the game. Stand by for details.

Historic Comments
We had someone bring one of these over to the office a month or two ago and it was a lot of fun. The display is a little crowded by the flash memory is fast. Just be careful when traveling with one because the TSA get nervous when they cannot hear the hard drives!
Rich | 05.29.08 - 11:11 am | #

I don't think anything could make the TSA more nervous than Audrey II.

http://www.oddree.com/rayhaque/a...que/ audrey1.jpg

I just got word today that my unit was ordered, and it should arrive by *next* Friday.
Ray Dios Haque | 05.29.08 - 4:37 pm | #

Victories in Life (yet, not in death)

Getting to sleep has been really tough lately. The tossing and turning is mostly attributed to tasks unfinished. And perhaps a wave of hypertension and manic depression which I sometimes just cannot vanquish despite my best efforts. I have taken on a few projects at work which have unobtainable outcomes. Such as correcting issues with an Exchange server which were created during a migration which took place almost four years ago.

The Exchange Issue
It took recreating my server environment with a host of VirtualBox servers, beating them to death, rewinding them, and starting them over again before I started to make any progress. For days I tore through forums, newsgroups, "knowledge bases" and the like. I found an old book on Exchange 2003 server, and read three fourths of it. I stayed up until 3:00AM a few nights working on the server while nobody was around to complain about it being off line. Using a few oddball development tools with huge disclaimers I came across some interesting clues. It seems that the migration was a "bust". When Public Folders were migrated, half of their contents went right out the window in the form of database errors. Permissions were tangled up and handed away to non-existent users. Most importantly, the Free/Busy was duplicated, renamed, and completely crippled until I stumbled upon the problem years later.

Having devised my own plan, I carefully backed up all the permissions for the folders - carefully removing the permissions for the system folders so that the problem wouldn't reoccur. Then I simply dumped the Public Folders into a PST file using Outlook, so as to avoid a recovery disaster with Veritas which would rely on "SIDS" of System Folders which I wanted to recreate. Then - I blew it all away, forced Exchange to give me a new set, and I put all the permissions back. It was ... glorious. My boss was pleased (but not overjoyed, because she really didn't understand why I was so dedicated to solving it).

Certificate Issues
One day I got a call from a user who couldn't access the hospital e-mail. It's a common call, and it's usually because the user is incapable of following simple instructions. But just to make sure that there really isn't a problem, I always remote to my home PC and try to log in myself. Alas - there really *was* a problem. I had no idea how deep it ran. This became another case of something that hadn't been set up correctly to begin with, but had waited nine months or so before becoming a real problem.

A day and a half later, I had resolved the issue. Not only had I fixed it, but I had documented the whole procedure. I was careful to document the details because the certificate would be expiring soon and we would have to repeat this whole process. My boss, who doesn't speak tremendously good English, had come to agreement that I was "her pappy". She wasn't quite sure what that meant exactly, but after shouting "who's your pappy?" repeatedly from my desk - she emerged from her office with the answer.

It's hard to describe that feeling. When you have spent endless days working on an issue, and you resolve it, there is a moment of peace. But it doesn't last, and I am quick to jump onto something else to bring my brain silence.

Math Problems
Aside from the array of problem solving at work, I have had several weeks of torturous math problems at school. I had enjoyed my last class. The reading was quite a lot of work, and writing the end report took a lot of energy. But in the end, I got an 'A' in that class. I've asked around with some of the other folks that took the class with me. They got 'B's. Math class seemed a lot harder. It was supposed to be an introductory class to other bigger mathematical concepts. What it ended up being was a hodge-podge of everything crammed into a six week course. Each week there were four new chapters to read (and therefore four new concepts). Homework usually ran about 10 to 12 pages, and took upwards of 15 hours. Spending all weekend studying and trying to learn math from a course book was frustrating.

The professor had a few issues too. He often derailed discussions, demonstrating his 'old Jedi math' on a chalkboard while we all looked on dumbfounded. Running short on time the past four weeks of the course, he resorted to dropping on quiz all together, and changing the last two so that they wouldn't cover concepts that we hadn't learned in class. I was really dreading the final. I had done well on the mid-term (I aced it). But by the time the final had come on the last night of class, I was very unprepared. The instructor allowed us to have a cheat sheet, and I thought I had made a pretty good one. He even gave us a few hints about what we could expect. And then ... he delivered something wholly other. The first question asked for a demonstration of Egyptian multiplication through addition. This was a concept we had seen and used only once during the course. Most other questions related to complicated scenarios involving odds. A concept which still does not compute with me.

I spent the entire amount of time allotted taking the final exam. I ended up being one of the last two students out of the room. "Where was that geometry?", I asked him. He says, "I didn't want to put a lot of that on there". I indicated that I would have liked more geometry and less odds theory. He said I must be a visual person. I agreed. I left feeling pretty defeated. I had really given that exam my best, and by my own calculations I probably scored a 60 percent at best.

But just today, my grade for the course finally appeared. I have been checking the web site every hour or so for the past week and a half waiting to see what I got. And then ... an 'A' showed up. Relief. I think I know how it happened. 10 minutes into the final exam, a few folks had all ready finished. I know that even working feverishly at 100 percent brain utilization, you could not have completed that exam and have shown your work in that amount of time. I think most of them had simply given up on the class at that point. I'm wondering if he didn't have to curve the class scores to get a few 'A's. I know at one point, I was got one of the five 'A's on a quiz for a class of 30 (there were few B's and C's in that group). I don't think I even care what I got on that final exam. I passed ... with an 'A'.

I can sleep.

Death
There are a few things in life, which remain unconquered. It is the impassible which haunt me most. As I watch my wife take long drives to the city to see her ailing grandfather, I know that each trip might be her last. I cringe every time the phone rings, as we're all expecting bad news. I watch her constant state of unrest. She sometimes tosses in bed at night and grabs for my hand without ever really waking up. We both wait for an influx of imminent pain and depression that will follow the death of her grandparents. But the pain arrives slowly, in carefully prescribed doses. Waiting for bad news is a sure fire way to lose sleep.

Busy hands find no comfort.

I can't sleep.

Historic Comments
Math hates me as well.
Hello | 05.15.08 - 9:52 pm | #

Home Alone

Yesterday my wifes grandfather was having surgery, so I took the day off of work to free her from kids and school duty. After getting my daughter off to school, I was home alone. That doesn't happen all to often, and I have to admit I didn't know what to do with myself. I blogged quite a bit, which I hadn't done in ages. I did some laundry, which unfortunately I also rarely do. I installed OpenOffice to my daughters computer so that she could do a report for school. Then I realized it was only noon. I wanted to work on my term paper at least a little bit, but I just wasn't in the mood.

So I hopped into the Bug and ventured off to find my local library. I looked it up on a map, and saw that it wasn't even half a mile from my house. I could have easily walked there, but it was raining off and on. I was impressed with the size of the place. It was easily just as big (if not a little larger) than the library back in my home town. Yet, my home town had a "main library" which was several floors. This place *is* the main library for this small town, and the smaller towns around it. Still I was impressed with the selection of materials. And hey, I found two books to use for my term paper. Woot!

Then I went to Wal-Mart. I was looking for a pre-paid phone that I could use, so that I can give up this brick of a "smart phone" that I carry around now. The problem is, these pre-paid plans really suck. I would be dumping about fifty bucks into an old Nokia, and an hour or so of minutes. Nah. I guess I will hold onto this brick until my employer decides that it's not good for me to hang up on hospital staff. As of yet, that doesn't seem to necessitate her getting me something different. In the mean time I changed my cell phone greeting to "if you are calling during business hours, kindly hang up and call me at my desk".

My local Wal-Mart has a nice Clearance aisle full of worthless shit. One such item, a "snake bite kit" made by Coleman. At only $1.50 I was tempted to buy one and do something random with it (like inter-office mail it to one of my co-workers without explanation). But then I found a clearance item of significant magnitude.

HEELIES FOR MEN.



Now I know what you are going to say. They don't make those things for grown men. You would be correct. What you are looking at is half a roller skate with a little elastic strap to hold them to your feet. Instead of a single heel, you have wheels on either side of you feet at about the same logical place. The amazing thing was that they fit my enormous size 14 Converse shoes.

I got home, busted them out of the box, and next thing I knew I was rolling through my kitchen on these bad boys at high speed. Of course, when my kids came home from school they were equally as impressed with the toy. They spent the next several hours performing death defying stunts, and testing every inch of patience from our two dogs. Quite simply, the best $7 I have ever spent.

My wife returned with good news. The surgery was an easy success, without any problems whatsoever. Grandpa was sent home the same day.

We ended up going out for dinner to a nice Italian joint up the road. We haven't been out in ages, which is probably a good thing (or at least a healthy, and cost saving thing!). I just love *real* Italian ravioli. That's good eatin' there.

It was a pretty good day.

Today we learned that Grandpa is right back into the hospital with a high fever and they suspect it's an infection. So that news, is not so good. It looks like tomorrow we return to "the big city" (my old home town) to do some visiting with the grandparents and perhaps some thrift shopping.

Oh, and I typed up about 5 pages of my term paper so far. I only need 8-10. I'm thinking I may have a hard time shrinking this thing down, as I feel that I should only be about 1/3rd done.

Historic Comments
Kudos to you and your wife for furthering your education.

FWIW, I took some upper-level Philosophy classes that ended up being the most interesting classes I had in college. We had great discussions in nearly every class. Had it not been my Jr/Sr year I very well may have changed my major.

Glad to see you're blogging again.
Best wishes to your wifes grandfather.
Michael | 03.18.08 - 11:14 am | #

Alive in 2008

I'll bet you thought I had perished. But then, who are you and why are you still reading this awful Blog? I have been living, rather well I might add, in my new small town working my small part in a big hospital. I love it. Since my last post - ages ago - quite a bit has transpired. My wife passed her GED exam with flying colors, in record time. I followed her lead, and jumped into school myself to begin working on a degree. One of the perks of working where I do is that a small sum is paid to me each year which I can spend educating myself. My goal, is to put my wife into a position where she too can begin working toward a degree.

Back to School

I never had a vision of going to college. After I left high school, I was able to land myself in several job opportunities which were rather well paying. I was on a mission to prove that you didn't really need an expensive certificate to prove yourself worthy of a skill. Even if that skill was a highly technological skill, or set of skills. I have done all right. Of course, there have been lay-offs. And I have been denied work, due to complete lack of any college education. So now that I am in a good position, I should probably prepare for a day when I may not be so lucky. And heck, it might be fun?

I was sent a course list from my recruiter and asked to choose whatever I desired. You had your typical math, English, philosophy, etc. You also had a fair share of courses on Christianity and faith. Interesting. I could certainly learn something in those courses as well, but not being a ma of faith myself, I don't know that my views would be welcomed there. Then, a course on technology caught my eye. I expressed my desire to take the course to a co-worker who is also attending the same University. "Oh, you don't want to take that" he said "it's just a whole course on bashing technology". Awesome! I enlisted.

The class was not quite what I expected. It's been shaped around a single book, Technopoly, by Niel Postman. Postman has written the book from the perspective that Western society is putting too much stock into technology. We create problems with technology, and try to solve them with technology. It has redefined our world view. It has removed essential elements for a strong moral "narrative". And so on, and so forth. While I disagree with Postman in a few areas, I agree with him for 90 percent of the book. Perhaps worse, I understand him.

I consider myself to be fairly anti-technology. I have a rotary phone on my desk (because it's a testament to good quality). I drive a 1968 Volkswagen (because I can, and have, rebuilt the vehicle myself). I am about to trade in my cell phone for something without a keyboard, camera, etc. (because I need a phone that doesn't lock up when someone tries to call me). I have become this way, because I have lived in an area where I see greedy corporations taking over the world. Their tool, is technology. And not good technology either. Quickly developed, cheap, and garbage-like stuff. My class, does not see it.

During an in-class discussion, I made a statement about a video we had watched. An MIT professor claimed that "my children and grandchildren will not have to work as hard, because technology will allow them more time for family and entertainment". I balked. I said "how could he claim to be an expert and yet be so naive?", and "he is working the same amount of hours as his father did, and studies would show that we actually spend more time at work now than 50 years ago". Ah, but I was challenged by a younger student in the class. She disagreed. She countered with this story.

"I work for an insurance company. We are joining a new program called TEAM. I forget what it stands for ... it's an acronym. With this new program, we are joining forces with other agencies so that we can work fewer people, fewer hours, and yet still accomplish the same amount of work".

I of course wanted to know how that had worked out. Admittedly, the program had not yet been implemented because "not everyone at the agency was on-board". I wanted to slap her. I wanted to shake her around and tell her not to be sold on an acronym. Nothing is that easy.

This is the problem. Management types need to justify their existence. What better than an acronym. What better than a new process that removes labor, and adds profit. Technology is the cure to the problem. Whatever that problem happens to be. We will build a software package to manage the people. But of course, you will need a database to store all that information. You had better use Microsoft SQL. It's going to cost you, but it's all we support. What, you don't have a database administrator? You had better hire one. He or she will need to be skilled at this application, and staying current will mean training them. While on the subject of data, how are you going to back up this information? You do realize that this application will need it's own server too, right? We don't share our server with other applications. Perhaps you could virtualize that server, and "go green". Have you considered hiring a consultant who can reduce your energery consumption? What will you do if the power goes out? You need to purchase some components to generate power, for when the power fails. And so on. And so forth.

I understand what this class is about. But I fear that the instructor and I are the only ones. There have been a few times where we disagreed on some fairly good points. That makes for good discussion. There are very few of those which involve students. This was apparent in the first class, where the in-class discussions kept skating off toward discussions of "faith" and "God's plan". While I am not opposed to hearing discussions on how students feel that God plays into technology - it should hardly dominate the class. The instructor allows such discussions, but often reminds us to "stay on topic with the book". After my first night of class, my wife asked how it went. I told her that I thought either the students weren't actually reading the book, or simply did not understand it. Now that I am one class away from completing the course I would say the latter is true.

Yet ... last night, our Instructor asked the class to name elements that make for a good community or society. The goal would then be to ask if technology was what we needed to attain it. A young student behind me (who seems to be highly intelligent) offered "a balance between good and evil". I was taken aback. That was quite a bit deeper than the other items that had been chalked up, such as "better cars", "more family time", etc. The instructor countered. "Is evil necessary at all?". I backed her up. I stated that while we were asked to focus on Western society for this course, the entire Eastern culture would be in agreement with this statement. The Instructor had fun with this issue. He put it on the board, but off to the side as if not to consider it as a real answer. He proposed some interesting questions such as what good did the holocaust do? When atomic bombs were dropped at the end of World War 2 (or the beginning of WWIII depending on your warped view of history), what good was done by killing millions of men, women and children? That's pretty heavy for the class we are in, and the questions were meant to be rhetoric. But it was obvious that this student was all ready thinking above the discussion, and was probably above this course. Perhaps I am too.

Most students have been fulfilling their homework each week by summarizing the authors points from each chapter onto a single sheet of double-spaced paper. To me, that is not *nearly* enough space to encapsulate his best thoughts. I need at least two sheets. I don't think anyone else would agree with me. They seem to be running short on a single sheet. At times, I have seen students say that they agree with the author on an issue, where it was clear to me that the author was going "the other way" with the argument. The instructor encourages us to counter each other, but most of the time - nobody would understand the point being made.

Now, I should be working on the paper I need to submit for this course, and not blabbing about this dreck. But, it sure is a good vice isn't it? I dump out this lump of thoughts from my brain - to a machine. Which will kindly store it, sort it, make it searchable, and one day deem it worthless before archiving and deleting it.

In the mean time, I wonder how my wife's grandfather is doing right about now?

Historic Comments
Next post in six months then? :D I've always wanted a cellphone that just made and received calls. All that extra crap does is run the battery down. Some tech companies just don't understand the Keep It Simple Stupid rule.
Hello | 03.15.08 - 3:35 am | #

just wondering about your book

Working Title(s): Invasion Of Privacy / Home Invasion
By Ray Dios Haque
Draft – Last Revised 12/29/04 - Version 1.1


tell me , how much further did you go with the research, is it an old copy or new, it says 2004

my hobby after work is cracking wifi nets, once i get access i test the connection and go to another one, every single wifi network i´ve scanned has been cracked by me, companies, homes, schools etc , i havent come across any challenge yet , anyways, just thinking if you´re into this stuff , would be great tpo share ideas, coming across you pdf book
sweden | 05.07.08 - 12:02 am | #

The Update

My old boss called me this morning. It was good to hear from him. I hadn't spoken to him since I left my old job. That was now sixth months ago. I know, because a day or two ago I got a shot in the arm. It was my six month Hepatitis B vaccine.

I had left my old boss a message last week wanting to talk about off-site electronic backups. It was something that he does pretty well, and having worked for him I all ready know how far below the competitors margins he is when it comes to "cost per gigabyte of off-site storage". Of course he is offering a slight discount to the former employee, which I have graciously accepted. None of this will go down until next year, as we are just planning on how we will spend the hospitals capital budget for 2008. But enough about that.

A few nights ago I was driving out to pick up my son. I took the bug. That's right. I'm rolling VEE-DUB style. That's a long story, but here's the synopsis. 1) The engine went in 2) It wouldn't start, and leaked a TON of oil 3) The engine came out, and I found a mistake that I had made when installing the oil cooler 4) The engine went back in, and wouldn't start 5) After much adjusting of the valves - it fired up ... and hasn't stopped running since.

Anyway, while driving out on that cool autumn night I thought, "this is nice". And it is nice. I love my little house. I love my busy job. I love walking out at night and hearing *nothing*. I like sitting on my high speed Internet connection. I love my kids new schools. They love their new friends. Moving here -- was a life changing event (a good one of course).

Monday my wife goes to take a test. It will determine what she has to study to earn her GED. She'll be in class a few nights a week earning her Diploma. When that is done, I will likely try to slip back to school myself. I am now eligible to start taking college courses, which will be paid in full by the hospital. Nice benefit.

In general, LIFE IS GOOD. :-)

Some People Need Punched In The Face

This blog wouldn't be any fun if I just sat around and told you about how great life is. So I think it makes good sense to drop a rant in here.

Recently, a wise assed college goer stepped up to microphone at a public speaking event, and asked John Kerry something really insulting. Apparently, security did not find the humor in his smart-assed remarks, and moved in to storm the verbal assailant. The student seemed to know what was going to happen next. He begged and pleaded not to "tased" with the taser gun. Men everywhere covered their eyes in sheer disgust of his sissie-ness. What happened next was a long, brutal, and *probably* unnecessary use of extreme violence. While the attendees of the event shrieked in horror, and begged the security folks to leave him alone - the comments of the video (once posted online) were more of the "LOL!" variety.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not some Nazi that condones this kind of violence from underpaid and under trained security staff. Yet, I am compelled to root for the guy holding the taser. This punk thought he could run to the podium, insult the public speaker, and not have to tolerate the feedback for his remarks. He was mistaken. Perhaps the feedback was a bit harsh. But that's the cost of being a total douchebag.

Yet - maybe we need more action like this. It seems that there needs to be a better feedback system for voicing rude comments. Stepping up to the podium at a public rally for this young gent' was apparently not the time or place. But what is the right time and place?

What about the idiots we "elect" into power? Democracy has gone to the dogs, and you know it. Once they are elected, they are seemingly protected from any negativity. If you show up to a rally holding a sign that says "THE SENATOR IS A FUCKING TOOLBAG", you would be dismissed. So, only those with polite things to say are invited. But when do the nay-sayers get to step up and voice a complaint? Let's say you buy a product such as Windows Vista, and it's SO bad that you are completely insulted for having paid any amount of money for it? Too bad. You can call the corporation and tell them why you hate it, but they will hang up on you. They don't have to tolerate that.

I think what this society lacks, is the open ability to show up and punch someone in the kisser. A lot of problems would be solved, and quickly.

A few days ago, someone left a note on my wifes car. It must have been a response to our bumper sticker which reads, "What would Buddha do?". The note read something like, "Buddha is dead and rotting in the ground. Jesus rose from the dead. He's alive. Duhhh". Leaving a note on the windshield of a car ... to disagree with a bumper sticker ... is a most sad, pathetic, and cowardly act. While it's intended to serve a joke, I am a Buddhist. I would love to have discussed religious matters with this individual. But alas, they were a complete, and total pussy. Akin to the thousands of cowardly, idiot losers who hide in their bedrooms posting to online forums. Or serving in public office beyond layers of lackluster security. What they need, is a good solid punch in the face. I know, I know. I'm a Buddhist, and I shouldn't condone such violence!

Instead, let me address that coward here in my blog. It's the best way I know to reach someone, who obviously didn't want to talk to me about it.

Dear cowardly, church-going fool ...

Not everyone believes that Jesus rose from the dead. Some of us find the whole "ghost emerging from the cave" story a little hard to swallow. Which, is understandable. If I were to say, "well just the other day, I buried my dead grandfather ... but he just won't stay dead ... he came right back!" ... I would have to be sent to a psychologist. Please also keep in mind, that your religious beliefs are all you have ever known, and will likely remain all you know. Try to educate yourself on other world belief systems to better prepare yourself for our next debate.

Additionally, let me serve you an extra large helping of irony-pie (with cream on top). The Buddha was just an ordinary guy. He was pretty clear about spreading what he considered to be "the truth". One of these truths is that all of us will eventually die. He included himself in this theory. He in fact, considered himself to be pretty average. To remind me that he is rotting in the ground, reinforces that you know nothing about the founding principles of Buddhism.

The Buddha must have suffered a lot of criticism from folks like this. They walk around so sure of themselves. Never looking outside of what they have been lead to accept, all the while questioning their "faith". Why would God put me through this? Thank God for giving me that promotion! I want to thank God for giving me this day! That my friend, is what I find crazy. Buddhists don't operate on faith. We accept that we are in control of our own actions. We are nice to people because being nice to people makes them feel good (not because we are trying to score points for heaven). Or rather, if you are a Theravada Buddhist - you are nice to people because it makes YOU feel good. :-) We don't neaten up once a week and confess our sins, because we aren't doing anything that requires forgiveness. If we were to go out and do something awful, we would have to live with the awful consequences. We call this system "karma". You should look into it.

But you won't. You will continue to go to church, talk about how angry you are about anyone who doesn't agree with you, and leave notes on peoples cars.

If you ever grow up, and decide to accept being a responsible and accountable person - please come talk to me.

There, that's all that needed said. I don't expect that they got the message. But perhaps one of you church-going "leave notes on windshield" types will get to read this, and will understand my message.

Or maybe you just need a good punch in the face?

Historic Comments
I guess you'll just have to let the poor bug run out of gas before you can fix that pesky "won't quit running" problem. :D
Hello | 10.03.07 - 4:37 pm | #

Funny you should say that. I did let it run out of gas last week. It wouldn't stay running one morning and after much thought I realized that I hadn't filled up in two weeks. Turns out when I replaced my gas tank, my fuel sending gauge either didn't go in correctly or needs some adjustment. I had to loot the "mower can" to get it to the gas station. Woops!!

-Ray
Ray Dios Haque | 10.03.07 - 9:16 pm | #

Hey Ray!
Its so good to see that things are going well with you.

I too am sick of the zealots that make up much of American society. You see it in everything people want to thank the magic man in the sky for everything and seek answers as to why he made them sick or took away Uncle Ernie.

If only you could really communicate with the loser who left your wife that note instead of posting it where he or she will never see it.

Rich
Rich | 10.09.07 - 2:41 pm | #

Good to see you are still alive.
bird603568 | Homepage | 10.15.07 - 3:13 pm | #

Its amazing that with all the positivity in your life you can still dwell on something so stupid as a hillbilly leaving a note on your windshield.
Johnny Fist | Homepage | 10.17.07 - 8:14 am | #