Corey Gouker's Machine Inside the Mind

Well I did have this really nice 2000 word blog entry to go up but I pressed ALT+HOME instead of CTRL+HOME by accident and lost the entire thing so instead I'll just say that this is the last entry for me in 2003 and to be sure and look for a nice big one come the 9th of January when I'm settled in at home again. Till then, Happy New Year everyone!

After a long long journey I've arrived in Manchester, it was raining of course. Felt strange for a while after the flight, like I was up on a 12,000 foot summit. Brain is a bit dead at the moment. I've got two small pieces of work to do so I guess I'll spend the next X period of time thinking of something to write. Bang.

Flight Details follow, just in case the flight goes down or something, or if it's delayed or who knows. Of course if anything like that happens we could at least say that my ESP was out of whack right Jon? Would be kind of ironic I suppose. At any rate that's not going to happen, I'm certainly not going to be responsible for that, unless of course my WiFi has anything to do with it lol. Anyway, I'll try blogging once I'm there and when I'm not *busy*. Have a great holiday!

Wed 10-Dec-03
LAX to EWR, 2459mi, 5hr. 0mn. - Continental Flight 16
Departs 10:30AM Arrives 6:30PM
Economy/Coach Class (34A), Lunch, Boeing 767-200, 60% on time (ouch)

EWR to MAN, 3336mi, 6hr. 40mn. - Continental Flight 20
Departs 8:20PM Arrives 8:00AM + 1 day
Economy/Coach Class (42A), Dinner, Boeing 767

Total miles: 5795 mi (9326 km)
Total duration: 11hr 40mn (13hr 30mn with connections)

Thu 8-Jan-04
MAN to EWR, 3336mi, 7hr. 35mn. - Continental Flight 21
Departs 10:00AM Arrives 12:35PM
Economy/Coach Class (42A), Lunch, Boeing 767

EWR to LAX, 2459mi, 5hr. 45mn. - Continental Flight 65
Depart 3:30PM Arrives 6:38PM
Economy/Coach Class (34A), Dinner, Boeing 767-200, 40% on time

Watching the news just now it suddenly dawned on me that this north eastern storm that's going on right now could last more than a couple days and that there's a slight chance it could even last through the 10th. I wonder if it's going to affect my Continental flight from LAX to EWR (flight 16) then from EWR to MAN (flight 20). So far, most flights in and out of EWR the past day seem to be okay according to the Continental website but almost all have been delayed. I've been through a thunderstorm on a flight, I wonder if I'll be going through a snow storm this time .

I guess I'll also just say that I'll be in Manchester, England till January 8th unless something comes up around CES and I end up coming back on the 7th instead. I'll probably be lite on the blogs while I'm away but I'm sure I'll get at least a few in here or there. Oh and my webcam will also most likely be off for the duration.

I just tried turning on my sexy Windows XP Lava Lamp and a nice little flash came from the bulb as it blew. Not too surprising considering I put a higher wattage bulb in what was recommended and I've been leaving it on constantly the past few weeks. In any case I started removing the bulb but noticed that it wasn't coming out quite right. Just as I thought I had it the bulb came apart from the base, . What to do I thought... Hmm well I didn't feel like going behind the desk and following the cable from the lamp to the plug to unplug it so I just went for the pair of plyers and started using them to turn the base of the bulb. I had Jon watch my webcam while I was doing it just in case I did actually get electrocuted, I mean if I did I at least should get a couple pics of it right? To my dismay I didn't get shocked, or maybe I was actually semi intelligent about knowing whether the switch for the lamp was on or off. Anyway it'll be a couple days before I can go to WAL*FART to grab a new bulb. I think this time I'll get something with a little less wattage.

The upgrade to the new dasBlog is complete. It was posted over at its GotDotNet workspace earlier, I kept on checking the actual dasBlog download page expecting it to be there, lol.

Moving things to the new version was a snap, no problems at all except I forgot to not copy the smilies I did from MSN Messenger. Of course I copied the wwwroot first so I just put the GIF's back in . I was already running version 1.4.3297.1 so all I had to do was drag all the files from the DasBlogWebFiles-1-5-3337-0.zip except the SiteConfig, content, logs, and Web.config. Simple as that.

I noticed that Clemens added a search to the CandidBlue theme so I popped in the <%newtelligence.search()%>then added the two extra classes to the CSS to make it fit. I'm definitely running out of room on that left side. Note to self, never do a site design like this again, it totally blows. Oh and note to self, get your ass in gear and redo your site you lazy bastard. Lastly I also added a link on the left so you can Watch My Webcam.

Since finding out about how the protocol for the Windows Media Meta Services is patented I've just decided to start a search for the patent. I did find the patent for ASF which was super neat. But I then thought there had to be a way to retrieve all Microsoft patents, which there is, from what I've discovered this is it ?

Dominic refers to a post Scoble made about Microsoft's “large wodge” of cash. When I first read the post a while back I read it as a “large wad” of cash. Today looking back at his site for another reason I noticed that he said wodge. My reaction was “what the heck is a wodge”?

So I checked and indeed wodge is in the Encarta World Dictionary:
U.K. large lump: a large lump or chunk of something (informal)
They caught him stuffing wodges of banknotes into his pockets.

But somehow I would think that the word wad is used more universally. The Encarata World Dictionary gives the definition of wad as:
5.  finance a lot of money: a large amount of money (informal)

Pink Floyd don't use the word wad when they describe Money. They simply say “I'm all right Jack, but keep your hands off my stack”.

So where does this lead us? Well pretty much the same exact place where we started. There's been this ongoing thing with the US and UK. Who uses the correct spelling and pronunciation. Is it about or aboot, is it center or centre, aluminum or aluminium. Who really invented the first personal computer. Was it done in Manchester, England or was it done in the “Land of the Free”. Sure Oxford owns the English language so to speak but who's to say Webster didn't make it better?

Words are being added regularly and we're coming up with new meanings for existing words all the time. When I was in England I heard a couple people yell “shotgun” as they ran for the passenger door of the car (which is on your left Dom ). But if it wasn't for the days of the wild west that extra meaning would've never come about. Back then when stagecoach robbery was common they used to have the driver and a guy carrying the shotgun to help protect the stagecoach during heists. The driver alone couldn't protect the stagecoach so there was always a guy riding shotgun.

I guess my point is that the US and UK should settle these trivial differences. We should become one. If we were just more like Canada and in the words of The Who “join together with the band”.

Mack D. Male a nice guy from Canada has launched AcademicLonghorn.com. I'm really excited to see it up and running!

It now joins the UCLA Passion site and the Microsoft Student Partners. Dom, Mark and I are all hoping and counting each site as they pop up. I think I can safely say we'll be seeing a site run by Oxford University soon as well as another portal for the Society of Women Engineers over at UCLA as well.

I also wanted to say Mack did a class job on the graphics for his site. While not a substantial shift from the original skin I think the colors he used go well both with the skin and align nicely with the original Longhorn logo. I couldn't have done better myself. Great work!