Misreply.org

Let’s be honest, there’s really not much to do at 3am when you’re bored but watch infomercials, porn, or random things on your computer. Having watched that week’s new episode of Top Gear, I decided that instead of boring infomercials, I’d rather watch more Top Gear, and revisited one of my favorite segments of all time.

Season 10, Episode 01 of Top Gear closed with one of the greatest films of all time: one about trying to find the greatest driving road….in the world. A road that would challenge both car and driver. A mostly empty road, with scenic views, tight turns, fast straights, tunnels….the works. They basically settled on the fact that this great driving road would be found somewhere in Europe, close to the Alps. They took three of the greatest sports cars money could buy (except for James May, who brought a race car with no air conditioning, no windows, almost solid suspension…you get the idea): A Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, a Porsche GT3 RS, and an Aston Martin race spec Vantage.

Basically, they did what I really really really really want to do, and if I ever win the lottery, I’m buying myself a sporty car, and flying to Europe.

Anyway, onto the actual interesting bits: the roads themselves, which, with Top Gear’s excellent cinematography, looked even more fantastic than usual. The first road, the benchmark, was the Col de Turini, in France. Usually a stage for the World Rally Championship, it is one of only a few things the French have going for them (I kid, I kid….ok maybe I don’t).

The second road that they highlighted was the San Bernadino Pass: a mountain road in the Swiss Alps between Hinterrhein and Misox. This scenic stretch of road features smooth roads, sweeping turns, and a long tunnel where the sounds of the car could really come alive.

The highlight of the trip; the best driving road in the world was the road from Davos to Stelvio via Bormio. This road is as scenic as it is challenging. It had everything they could dream of: quick turns, sweeping curves, smooth roads, breathtaking views, fast bits, tight bits. This is a road that could make you actually become one with your car. Sure, you could drive it in a Volvo as a side road, but pushing a car to the limit on this road would be the ultimate rush. After this road, driving to work would seem even more bland than it does now, if that is even possible…unless you live in Davos and work in Stelvio…in which case, hire me. To put the cherry on top, the Stelvio Pass at the end of this road was another piece of driving heaven. Being one of the highest paved roads in the Swiss Alps, it is also one of the most challenging roads to drive on. It has hairpin turns throughout the entire pass, limited visibility, and nothing to stop you from falling down the mountain if you get too brave and too stupid.

Seriously, go watch that episode if you enjoy driving even a little bit, and marvel at the greatness that is….the best driving road in the world.

I think I’ll play the lottery tomorrow.

cars

Yields marinade for 6 chicken leg/thigh combo or 8-12 oz steaks.

The Wet Ingredients

• 8 oz Orange Juice
• 4 oz Myers dark rum
• 3 oz Soy Sauce
• 1/4 cup molasses
• juice of 2 limes
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 4 oz olive oil

The Fresh Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons of chopped garlic
• 1 large chopped sweet onion
• 2 tablespoons of fresh thyme
• 6 chopped scotch bonnet peppers
• 1 bunch of green onion

The Dry Spices

• 2 tablespoons ground allspice
• 1 tablespoon ground pepper
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes

1. Combine the wet ingredients in a large container.

2. Add the fresh ingredients to the wet ingredients.

3. Add spices to the previous combination…stir.

4. Marinate beef or chicken for a good 24 hours before cooking. Grilling is best.

Source: PA Ren Faire food festival

Recipes, food

Start with 1/2 pound of peeled and de-veined shrimp

Saute in a pan with 3 oz of olive oil until they start to turn white (not clear)

Add 5 oz of orange poppy seed dressing to the pan. Stir and let continue cooking

Remove from heat when meat is white throughout

Plate over lettuce and finish with orange zest and fresh cut orange slices

Source: PA Ren Faire food festival

Recipes, food

In a tall glass, combine:

6 oz Pineapple juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 dash liquid almond extract

Stir to dissolve sugar

Fill glass with ice, then add:

1.5 oz Myers dark rum
1.5 oz Bacardi white rum
1.5 oz Captain Morgan spiced rum

Fill with 4 oz sours mix

Shake…garnish with pineapple slice and cherry

Source: PA Ren Faire food festival

Recipes, drink

Hello dear readers (all 1 or 2 of you that are left due to my lack of updates), I am alive! Contrary to popular belief, I did not fall down a ditch; never to come out. I am here, and have a brand new post. As for not updating very often, I apologize. You ever have one of those days when you wake up and have to go to work…then when you are done, you simply don’t want to do anything at all? Or a day that is just busy, and when you are done, you want to do nothing more than flop on the couch and try to beat a vegetable at lack of action? Yea…well, I’ve had one or two of those….or forty, in a row.

So, my faithful Microsoft Intellipoint 5 button mouse finally gave out. After months of hiccups, missed clicks and tracking errors…it finally bit the dust and became so unreliable that I had to give it the boot. I used the opportunity to finally go wireless, and minimize some of the clutter on my desk, minimize some wires, and extend the reach of the mouse. I settled on a Logitech MX Revolution. Rechargeable battery – check, wireless – check, many buttons – check.

The SetPoint software, however, left a bit to be desired. Before I go any further, let me explain to you my love of the middle mouse button (or third button). In Firefox, it opens links in a new tab, closes tabs, and activates the scrolling mechanism. In TF2, it was my reload button. Logitech, however, decided that the middle mouse button simply wasn’t important enough to be an available option for button mappings.

The MX Revolution is pretty cool. It has your normal right/left buttons, a 4 way wheel (which also can act as a button…more on that later), a button right below the scroll wheel, 2 buttons on the side by the thumb, and another toggle switch of sorts under those. The Revo also has the nice option of having a clutch for the scroll wheel, which allows for some super fast and super smooth scrolling, without the clicky clicks. This behavior can either be toggled by the scrolling speed, or by pressing the scroll wheel in (using it as a button, as stated earlier). In the Logitech software, you can set that mouse wheel to act as your middle button instead. This is all well and good, since I love my middle button, but the click action is very hard; it wasn’t made to act as a button that is pressed multiple times per minute. That being beside the point, I like having it as the option to switch between scrolling modes. This leaves the button right under it, which is actually in perfect position to act as the middle button. It’s in between the right and left buttons, easy to press in, and easy to reach. Perfect…let’s set that as the middle/3rd button in the Logitech software!

Oh wait…you can’t. What? Logitech, did you REALLY not allow that as an option? I mean…really? I can use it to search stuff, flip documents, auto scroll, invoke Winamp, be a double click, close stuff…pretty much any function you can think of EXCEPT middle button. I mean, a nutless monkey could have coded the software better to allow that as an option. Sure, you can install an alternate driver, but I don’t recommend it since it breaks other functionality (such as using the side toggle as win+tab in vista), and generally doesn’t work as well.

So Logitech: this means war! A war that I intend to win. And I did win. See, (ok folks, this is where it gets geeky, so be warned) Logitech stores all the button configurations in an XML file on your hard drive. In Vista, that file is stored in C:\users\YOUR USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Logitech\SetPoint and is called user.xml .

If you open up that user.xml file, you will see that all the button configs are pretty straightforward XML format…all you have to do is replace the correct section with a correctly formatted, modified version. So…I made that little ‘search’ button my middle button by changing the button 6 configuration to the following: (No, I have no idea why it’s button number 6, but labeled as button number 4…it doesn’t make sense, it’s probably left over from some copy/paste I did when banging around the XML, but it works, so sue me)

(I’d like to have posted the text directly, but wordpress thought the XML was supposed to get parsed, even though it was in between code tags…oh well)

Voila! I now have a middle mouse button! So so nice.

Software, me = geek logitech, mouse, setpoint

Back in November of 2008, I was looking to buy a new car due to the unfortunate fate of my previous Civic. I wanted something somewhat fun…not boring. The Civic was certainly a great car; it would never have any mechanical issues, and would last forever, but I thought it was time for something a little better…something more fitting with my infantile mindset.

After some research, I narrowed my list to three sub-$25000 cars, and did some test drives.

Ok, let’s just preface this by saying that my test drives were of varying length, weather condition, time of day, and passenger. I have had the most amount of time driving the Speed3 mostly because Ry has one, and I “borrow” it fairly often. When I test drove the SI, the dude was a bit of a douchebag, and we only went about a mile or two in it due to it being a busy-ish Saturday morning. That does not excuse that dealership’s conduct toward a potential buyer. I drove the GTi the night before, and drove it in the rain when it was dark outside. Took it through some back roads, some highway..dude was pretty cool about letting me get on it.

Anyway, onto my reviews.

2008 Mazda MazdaSpeed3
Pros: It’s a fast car. No matter what gear you are in, it just wants to go. Some noticeable turbo lag, but once it hits about 3000-3500 it goes “hello!”. Braking is awesome, it stops on a dime pretty much. Handling is great…there is very little body roll, but then again, with it not being my car I haven’t really pushed it very hard. Interior is well made, the controls are within easy reach, it’s fairly comfortable, and has a decent amount of room in the back. The glovebox is xbox huge for storing stuff. It’s a four door, so the backseat passengers are happy. It looks good…I mean…really good; from almost any angle.
Cons: It has a hard ride. The suspension is stiff and the tires are low profile, so you feel everything. They overdid the red in the interior. Everything is red, from the dash, to the climate controls, to the radio. Don’t get me wrong, I like red as much as the next guy, but goddamn. The speedo is a bit weird as well (not a big thing, just nitpicking), as the separation takes some getting used to… the 60mph mark is where I’d think 35 is in any other car. Visibility isn’t that great with the way the hatch is, there are a few blind spots, but not too bad. It has a few weird rattles, especially in the hatch and the seats. The hatch cover moves around, and the seats squeak a bit as you move around in them. The backseat isn’t very comfortable, but I wouldn’t be spending much time there.
Other comments:You also can’t really feel speed in the car. Cruising at 90mph, it feels like you’re standing still, which is both good and bad. The steering is very touchy. The slightest movement makes the car change direction…I like feel in my steering, but without having to worry about moving the wheel too much.

2008 Volkswagen GTi
Pros: This is a fun car. Less turbo lag than the Speed3. The DSG transmission is like having god himself shift for you…it’s quite an amazing experience. It’s fun around corners (it was rainy so I took it easy), with very good braking and handling (Although people say it’s worse than the speed3..I wasnt really able to notice the difference due to lack of being able to push both cars hard). The 2 door looks pretty awesome, but not like some of the classic GTIs (not that I care). The one I looked at had a moonroof, premium sound, 6 cd changer with mp3 and sat radio, ipod connector..the works. Hatch is roomy, and contoured well. The interior is also very well put together, no rattles, everything is within easy reach and easy to see. The coloring of the interior is beautiful…when it’s dark and the dash lights up, it just looks amazing. The ride is very comfortable, virtually no road noise, and the bumps are nicely handled by the suspension. Under the hood it is very well designed and clean. Great fuel economy also (yea…dont care). 0% financing for 60 months.
Cons: Not quite as fast as the speed3. As tested, it came out to be a bit more expensive than the speed3 and the SI. The backseat isn’t quite as roomy as either the SI or the 3, but it is also the only 2 door that I tested. With it being a two door as well, passengers might not be all that satisfied. Volkswagen has some weird seat adjustments as well. In most cars, your seat angle is either electrically chosen, or you pull a lever and move the seat backing forward or back; in the GTi, there is a knob. It takes some getting used to. Parts for VWs…Im just kind of expecting them to be more expensive.

2009 Honda Civic SI
Pros: It revs to 8000 rpms and loves being in the high revs. It does about 30mpg with an engine that makes 200HP. The ride is very comfortable for both front and backseat passengers. The clutch and trans are one of the best 6 speed manuals I have ever driven…it is very very smooth. Trunk is roomy…the exterior looks pretty damned good, while still not drawing much attention to itself. It’s a Honda…so it will pretty much never break. Cheapest of the bunch.
Cons: it makes no power down low. It does nothing until you hit 6000 rpms. The interior is ugly…I have no idea who decided that having a dash that is long enough to use as a dinner table was a good idea. That same person probably also thought that having your tach by itself, and then having a digital speedo were a good idea. Guess what…it’s not. The car just wasn’t very fun to drive…unless you’re just revving the shit out of the engine, no instant power if you want to just GO. With the way the gearing is, you’re doing over 3000 rpms just going 60mph on the highway…wtf?!

So…those were my initial impressions of the cars I test drove last year. Did any of them change since then? Did my car of choice turn out to be great or a mistake? Tune in next time.

cars cars, gti, mazda, test drive

Virtualization is great…it’s the current hot item in IT. Everyone is doing it; it’s the future of datacenter consolidation.

…it’s my current project.

After a few days of research, some CBTs, and a few meetings, we finally decided to start implementing our grand master plan. Brand new 16 core server with 128GB RAM…check, ESX licensing…check, sanity…check.

After deciding on our virtual network and disk architectures, we finally went to work. VMware is ungodly easy to setup, it’s almost scary.

Next step was getting our VirtualCenter server up and running, and this is when the fun begins (and by fun, I really mean WTF). In the title of the post, I mentioned something about “tricking” around in this particular portion of the setup process, so allow me to explain.

VirtualCenter is basically just a consolidated ESX host management solution. Instead of connecting to each ESX host individually to manage it, VirtualCenter (VC from now on) allows you to manage all your hosts from one area. In VC, you can make ESX clusters, manage Distributed Resources, manage VMotion, and a whole bunch of other goodies. It runs on top of a basic Windows server, uses Active Directory for authentication, and is supposed to make everything nice and easy. Indeed, it does; the interface is great, and manageability is superb…it makes my job all that much easier.

Installation is pretty straightforward, and after clicking “Next” a few times for the VI Client and for the VC server, you think you’re golden. Of course, there are some steps you have to perform as pre-requisites for VC.
First, you need to create a database for it. Well, I’m lying, you don’t particularly HAVE to create a database for it, since it would offer to install MSDE in the same step, but we have a SQL 2005 Cluster…why not take advantage of it? So, created a database, and assigned a domain user myDomain\esxdb as db_owner to it.
Next, create a system DSN to point to that database using NT Authentication. Make sure you use the SQL Native client since it’s SQL 2005, and you’re ready to roll.
Finally, during install, provide the installer with the DSN name, the username, and the password that it will need to connect to the database.

Wait wait wait…so what about this trickery you keep talking about?
Let me get to that!

Next up…installing the Update Manager and the Converter. Go through those steps…and wait…it tells me that the VirtualCenter server is not running? I JUST INSTALLED THE DAMNED THING…on a brand new clean server, no less.

Ok then…I go to the Services menu and try to start it manually….fail. Fail? FAIL?!

Looking through logs (which are in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs …yea don’t ask why they are there, they just are), I see this:

[2009-04-01 16:20:21.613 'App' 1784 error] ODBC error: (28000) – [Microsoft][SQL Native Client][SQL Server]Login failed for user ‘NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON’.
[2009-04-01 16:20:21.613 'App' 1784 error] Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down…
[2009-04-01 16:20:21.613 'App' 1784 info] Forcing shutdown of VMware VirtualCenter now

Now wait a minute…why the hell is it trying to login to the SQL server as anonymous when I damned clearly provided a username and password for it, and I’m logged into the VC server as a domain admin, so even if it was passing active credentials, it should work. However, it was not.

So ok…what if I go back to the DSN and specify credentials there. Nope, can’t do that…it’s either NT authentication (which does not let you pass credentials), or SQL authentication (which does). Putting domain credentials into the SQL authentication fields result in a whole bunch of fail.

Ok then, next step: create a local SQL user, and use that instead. So I create a local user called esxlocaldb on the SQL server, make that user the db_owner, and re-run the installer for VC. I give it the credentials of the esxlocaldb user (after changing my DSN to use those SQL credentials, obviously), and it comes back and tells me that the credentials are incorrect. I doublecheck everything, do a test in the DSN config window, and everything is dandy…but the VC installer simply wont work.

So now, the trickery begins. In order to install this F-ing thing, I basically had to have both the esxlocaldb user as db_owner AND the domain\esxdb user as db_owner to the ESX database. For the DSN, I gave it the esxlocaldb credentials using SQL authentication, but for the ESX installer, I gave it the domain account. This seemed to work flawlessly.

I think that the installer is just wacked…it uses the DSN credentials to query the DB, but VirtualCenter actually requires a domain user to have access to it. Really, makes no sense to me, but we basically tried everything else. Every other possible combination of database rights and DSN configurations.

Makes no sense to me, but it works now…if anyone has any comments on what we may have missed, I’m all eyes and ears.

me = geek, work

No, really…I’m not confused; I did just say William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead.

Official Link

I highly suggest you go see this. It’s hilarious. As much as I’d love to give you a synopsis, it would kind of ruin the fun of seeing it.

However…just imagine this: Shakespeare….and zombies. I mean, really, do you need to know more? GO SEE THIS!

Do: Sit in the first three rows.
Do: Laugh
Do: Wear clothes that you don’t mind getting splattered in stage blood.
Don’t: Be a pansy.
Don’t: Bother to look for parking (it’s pretty much next to impossible, unless you get there early)

People

No, I have no intention of becoming Fark.com, but some of these things are just too hilarious/absurd/crazy to not post.

Too fat to work, eh….well, fuck you

Bat hangs on for dear life during space shuttle launch…stupid bat

Beer and titties….on the same bottle? Yes please!

Links

Senator tells AIG to go kill themselves

Pope Joe Pesci is an idiot

Fellow Shacker and an awesome photography concept

Beyond awesome time waster…your keyboard can be a Daft Punk music machine!

Apple are idiots. Same thing happened to LatestChatty

Aaaand finally, John Stewart serves up a case of woop ass on Jim Cramer: here

Links