Screwed by Design » Uncategorized

Pardon the Dust

Ryan Flint — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 03:24:23 +0000

I’m starting to switch over to a new theme I started working on in mid-June. I hadn’t done anything with it in weeks, and I figured if I didn’t make it live soon it’d end up with the rest of my unfinished projects…

So watch out for falling debris, broken links and general areas of ugliness. Hopefully I’ll finish it off one of these days

Washington D.C. Panorama

Ryan Flint — Thu, 18 May 2006 22:35:57 +0000

This was taken a few blocks north of Dupont Circle from the roof of my office building sans tripod using a crappy Fujifilm digital camera. Even so, it’s still kind of nifty if you disregard the funky color/perspective changes.

dc_pan.png (1.4MB)

Server Carnage

Ryan Flint — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 03:36:18 +0000

It’s always refreshing to see a webhost who knows what to do with an obsolete server.

Heck, it’s refreshing to see a webhost that knows what to do period. Having switched from 1&1 to Site5 after going through bad-RAM-host-denial hell, I couldn’t be more satisfied with them. They’re even got a nice flock of Firefox users to boot! What more could you ask for?

Winter Eases Its Death Grip

Ryan Flint — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:13:41 +0000

The lake’s almost thawed and the highs for the next few weeks aren’t supposed to drop below 50F degees! Looks like Spring is on its way!

From Angry Young Man to Piano Man

Ryan Flint — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 04:48:39 +0000

30min before Joel hit the stage. By the time he did, not a single empty seat could be found.

I just got back from the Verizon Center where Billy Joel just played an awesome concert. As you can probably tell from the above picture, I had great seats! My mother and I were literally 20ft. or so from the stage. The tickets (bought through eBay) were a real pain to get since Paypal ended up charging twice for them causing my bank to charge me $50 bucks in overdraft fees. Luckily I managed to get the second charge refunded and somehow even managed to have my bank return the $50. While incredibly inconvenient, the hassle was totally worth it to get seats as close as they were.

Joel playing Don’t Ask Me Why.

The show itself was great. Even at 56, Joel still knows how to please an audience. Playing a setlist that included some of his lesser known songs as well as the bigger hits.

Prelude/Angry Young Man
My Life
Everybody Loves You Now
The Entertainer
New York State Of Mind
The Downeaster ‘Alexa’
Zanzibar
Allentown
Don’t Ask Me Why
Pressure
Goodnight Saigon
Movin’ Out
An Innocent Man

She’s Always A Woman
Captain Jack
Keeping The Faith
I Go To Extremes
The River Of Dreams
Highway To Hell
We Didn’t Start The Fire
Big Shot
It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me
You May Be Right
Only The Good Die Young
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
Piano Man

Introducing Pressure prior to running to another keyboard on the right side of the stage.

One thing that really surprised me about this concert was the massive number of younger faces in the crowd. Of course the middle-aged to older group you’d expect to be there were, but the younger folks seemed to have more of a presence at this concert. It really shows that in times of crappy music, people will go off looking for alternatives. It also speaks for how timeless Joel’s music is considering his first hit came out in ‘71.
I really had a great time and given a chance, would buy another ticket or two to another of his upcoming shows.

Winter’s Back… With a Vengance

Ryan Flint — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 02:42:17 +0000

This winter has been fairly moderate in terms of weather with little snow and temperatures hitting 50°F on Monday. That was until we got hit by a blizzard on Thursday which brought with it 15in of snow and plunging temperatures. This is what I was greeted with this morning:

I think I’ll be staying inside until spring….

ChuckBot Module Now Available

Ryan Flint — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:38:40 +0000

The ChuckBot module for Mozbot mentioned in my last entry is now available for download. Chuckify your IRC channel today!

Chuck Norris Can

Ryan Flint — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:53:31 +0000

After my floor took on a Chuck Norris theme* (second and third went with Sean Connery and Katherine Hepburn respectively) I decided that Moznet could stand a little Chuckifying, so I wrote up a module for Mozbot and set it loose in a few channels. Of course you can only have so much greatness on one network, so he’s now restricted to #chuckbot (/msg ChuckNorris help for commands). Even through his time outside of his new sandbox was short, it was long enough to start a Chuck buzz. If you’re brave enough to submit a bug on it, chuck.diff awaits.

*pictures soon!

Almost There…

Ryan Flint — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 06:28:06 +0000

In 48 hours I’ll be getting up and preparing for my 6am flight back to D.C. It’s been a long time since I’ve been home and I’m really looking forward to it. All I’ve got left is an easy little 2-page paper and an mildly difficult exam. I’ve spent the weekend studying and preparing some Christmas gifts to bring with me. Unfortunately with all the running around I’ve done this weekend, I’ve somehow managed to lose my student ID (which also serves as our debit card) so I’ve had to suspend that until I either find it or go and get a new one. Buying food from the dining halls has really sucked since I now have to use cash and cash customers get their food prices marked up by 60%
*sigh*
Just 48 more hours…

Frozen

Ryan Flint — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 06:00:32 +0000

Lake Mendota froze last night. It’s not really a surprise considering it’s been about -2 for a week. On top of being really cold this week, we just got another 4 inches of snow. In some places it’s almost 2ft. deep due to previous snowfall and the high winds we’ve been having.
I can’t wait until I’m back home in the relatively warm weather.