Hoshnasi

Sorta-Kinda a part 2 from my last post.

I’ve been carrying a field notes pad with me all this week with space pen and I’ve jotted down a few ideas. However I’ve caught myself doing something else that is super bad-wrong. I’m vetting my ideas BEFORE I put them down on paper. I’m asking myself “is this good enough to waste white space on?”

I’m chuckling as I’m typing this because is damn CRAZY! I’m concerned that first and foremost that I’ll spoil my clean white piece of paper with my horrible idea/writing and even worst I’m concerned that my ideas are inferior and that if someone saw them I’d be embarrassed. Writing this make me think I have a complex or something. I need to get past that childhood fear of being mad fun of my peers I guess.

I fail through the memory hole. When I was in high school and college I would have plenty of funny ideas in a given day either from things that would set me off on TV, radio or my friends idiotic banter. I could recall these little moments easily hours even days later when I wanted to pull out an idea. Now, five or ten years later I’m having a very hard time recalling the things I wanted to write about. Thinking “I gotta blog about that.” isn’t cutting it anymore. I’d like to blame this on the stresses of my job, but I know my personal life is more hectic now too. It would seem I need a better way to keep track of these little specs of gold, er.. silver, bronze… copper? Either way, I need a better memory hole. The sad thing is I OWN all the popular quick data logging tools.

• Note pad and pen? Got it, never use it. I feel it takes to long, plus my writing is AWFUL! Hell I could write upside down and underwater if I wanted too!
• Digital recorders? I have an Olympus. I don’t use it because often, when I need to remember something its around people and I don’t want to be that guy.
• Laptop? Have one, but its too big and slow to bust out for a quick quip.

The Hipster PDA was my most resent though. Again, I’m not writing stuff down. It honestly seems I have a bad habit now. I prided myself on remembering the dumbest things. Movie quotes, memorable (and obscere) historic moments, the Java API and so on. Now when I actually want to use the data I can’t seem to get myself to put it on paper. With all the above things, I’m a google click away from the answers for what I forgot. However, there is no goodle for my memories… Not yet at least.

Anyone else have this issue? Have you forgot the best ideas that none of us will ever be able to see?

The older I get the more crotchety I am and considering I am only 26, this does not bode well.

I’ve been complaining about Dell delaying the Ubuntu Mini 9 to sell more copies of Windows and I’m still pissed off. Mainly because I just read the post over at workswithu.com. If it turns out that the Ubuntu mini has a Microsoft Windows key I think I might just skip it. I’ll either wait till Apple can deflate the Macbook Air to a reasonable price, or till a (decent keyboard equipped) Linux netbook hits the market.

These things seem like such little inconsequential things to me. The thought of delaying a release to favor one OS over another, or not removing a Windows key from a linux laptop are just the kind of things that get people to spread bad press about a company and potentially cool product because of some lazy designer/production manager/business analyst.

I noticed some whois traffic coming to the site so I too went and looked up my hoshnasi.com whois. Suprisingly I noticed my first and last name was under the registered to mark. Not a big deal, but I know I checked the anonymous registration box. Either way, that sparked my other six month hobby. Doing a search on Google to find out dirt on yourself.

I fired off a search and came up with what looks like two to three other Josh’s in the world of the interwebs. Me being the most awesome having my Facebook being the number one slot for my first and last name. One of the other Josh’s looked like a hardcore downhill skier, but screw that… Am I right?

Having become satisfied in myself for attaining the top rank in my name I set out to check out what images matched my name. Again, an image ranked number one from an old podcast I use to work on with my finace. However, the other pictures were a bit odd. The number two slot was a picture of a mother and a newly born baby sitting in one of those birthing tubs. There were a ton of pictures of dirt bikes and even one of Josh Norton.

Either way, my path seems obvious. I need to focus more on Xtreme dirt bike riding, skate boarding. Getting ripped and carrying huge weights. With a little office work sprinkled in. Also, get ready for Nass 08!!

I’ll make my back story here quick. The place I work gives out “points” as appreciation. These points can be redeemed for mostly cheesy stuff, like jackets with the company logo, digital picture frames and electric meat smokers. However someone in appreciation team decided to start offering gift cards, which is awesome because one of the cards offered is for Dell. Dell offers the employees an already sizable discount (16-20%) and if I can get gift cards I’d be able to subsidize a laptop even more. Cue the unveiling of the Mini 9.

The mini 9 hit the right buttons in me that other netbooks have not been able too. Mainly the fact it has a decent sized keyboard, a decent linux distro and with the gift cards and discount basically free. So I took to configuring one of these little laptops yesterday. I stuck to the base model only shelling out more money for increasing memory to 1gb. After my discount, the mini was under $300. An easy mark to hit with my mountains of points I have been hording -not spending- on meat smokers.

Then I saw a note on the site regarding Linux: “Pre-order with Mini OS powered by Ubuntu”.

“What the hell does that mean?” I thought. The other upgraded models that come with Windows XP were ready to ship the day the Mini hit the Dell website. In fact most consumers are getting the mini in their hands before the expected ship date. So trying to give Dell some credit I thought maybe the manufacturing infrastructure was not ready for Linux, or the distro wasn’t polished, then I saw the tool on CNET giving a video review WITH the Ubuntu Mini. So I called a Dell order help rep. The rep told me that the Linux model wouldn’t begin shipping till October 20th. Then it hit me. Dell is holding back the Ubuntu model release to give Microsoft ample chance to make money with Windows only Mini 9’s. I should re-phrase that, by Microsoft selling more copies of Windows Dell would naturally be seeing a fat cut of profits from Microsoft.

Maybe its a solid business move, but they definitely lost my spontaneous excited purchase money by jerking me around for not wanting Windows. That was enough to make me stop the ordering processing and let the excitement chill. So I’ll wait till next month, maybe when the time comes Dell will lose my business all together to a competitor, or to my fiacee who will then be my wife (getting hitched Oct. 4th!) saying “What the hell are you doing spending $300.00 on a toy! Get more Lowes gift cards!”

UPDATE (That wasn’t long!): 0xyg3n has been checking out the inside of his new Mini 9. Apparently the WWAN slot that enabled wireless internet (through a cell company) is not connected to any form of antenna. Making the slot meaningless. I guess Dell has another plan of releasing the Mini 9 in partnership with Vodafone in the UK later next month. That version will feature an internal WWAN card WITH antenna. Those of you ponying up for one of the new release models will have to do without the WWAN option.

The story is back. The asshole judge wants another crack at 54 million for a lost pair of pants from what was at the time a Korean owned dry cleaning company. To re-cap, the dry cleaners lost the customers pants and instead of telling the customer and paying for the pants. They tried to replace them with another pair. Outraged the customer sued the dry cleaners for 54 million in damages. In 2005 the case was decided in favor of the dry cleaners leaving the customer no other action than to try the case again in appeals court. He has always had the option of pulling his head out of ass and accepting the loss, but hey. He really wants that 54 million.

Hand talkers. At one point we have all had someone delivering a story or speech with an over abundance of hand gestures. Most of the time its fine. However sometimes -In the case of the last to episodes of Hak 5 (now on Revision 3) Its WAY overboard. Few people can use their hands to really drive a point home. Most of the time, its too much. Sadly, in the case of my Hak 5 example I totally forgot to *listen* to the point of what was going on and just watched this girl flail about looking really awkward.

Hand talkers have some issues in other places too. Like job interviews. When a small group of interviewers are watching your every move its “often better to just fold your hands on the table top. It gives a sense of togetherness and teamwork“, or so says the speaker I just so happened to be listening to you yesterday on the top of job interviews.

The point is simple, if you see people watching your hands more than you face, put them down and keep them there.

In the case of Shannon, I think it safe to say we are watching your hands. You have good points, but we need you to stop moving so we can focus.

1. I’m glad I’m only getting married once. I couldn’t do another bachelor party in my name… I’m so wiped out!!!!
2. I’m having a huge urge to play D&D online again. I won’t play it, but its weird none-the-less.
3. Claiming my blog on Technorati.

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