Mostly Harmless

Mostly about my amusement

Year: 2010 (page 3 of 13)

October 9, 2010

“Really pushes my buttons”

I’m driving my 8-year-old son to the train station to pick up his mother after work at the train station. He’s telling me about a kid that bothered him in school last year.

Him: Dad, he made me very upset. He really pushes my buttons.

Me: Well, try not to get worked up. If you lose your temper you’ll be in trouble.

Him: Yeah but he really pushes my buttons, you know? He really does push my buttons.

Me: When did you start saying “pushes my buttons”??

Him: I heard you say it today.

I was working from home that day and had to deal with another fine example of social darwinism. Later on while speaking to someone I said that phrase and my son picked it up.

Little kids do not miss a thing. Good thing he didn’t hear the more acerbic comments I sometimes make…

October 2, 2010

It’s the goofy user avatars that threw me off

My participation in the WordPress support forums was never overly ambitious. I would generally aim for questions that I could either respond to quickly or I had the time for. But for the last few months I have been refraining from picking up threads. Mostly because the questions fall under these categories:

  1. Something broke please help me fix it! (User provides no info to find out what happened, gets belligerent when asked for more info)
  2. How do I make my site look like this one? (User points to professionally made site that may not be running WordPress)
  3. I can do this on WordPress.COM, it should/must/has to work on WordPress.ORG’s version. (User points to feature that requires one or more plugins and was never built-in)
  4. Demands that !!WordPress!! fix! this! NOW!!! (Who do they actually mean? Automattic?)
  5. Philosophical debates re GPL and commercial success.

You get the idea. These are not new types of questions and the support forum has had these from day one.

What’s new is that the volume of these questions obscure the really good support problems that are out there. It’s like there is a vast tidal wave of people who really do not know that they are running a roll-your-own version of WordPress. They don’t know about requirements, reasonable expectations, or how to troubleshoot their own server. Sounds like a problem alright! But it’s not.

This is confirmation that WordPress is wildly successful.

WordPress has moved from being a PHP hackers pet blogging software and into a mainstream software product. These new users in such huge quantity means that WordPress “made it”. These users are along for the ride and the WordPress forum regulars (moderators and support ninjas) have these requests well in hand.

The support forums continue to evolve and will deal with the flood of new users. Everything moves and changes happen all the time to make the support experience better. I have just one request.

Can the WordPress support forums please lose the new default user icons? The MonsterIDs are freaking me out.

September 28, 2010

That old painful feeling

Ever get that painful headache where you can feel the vein behind your eyeball? You know, the type of headache where you look left or right and it hurts to do that? I get those from time to time, maybe 4 times a year. Last night I got that around 3 AM so knowing what to do I took three Advil and went back to sleep.

It worked too but around 5:30 AM the pain began to creep back. I know how this story ends, so rather than do a 90 minute commute in pain I called my boss and called in sick. At some point this morning I am going to lie down with my eyes open and think “My, what pleasant color the ceiling is” while wondering how nausea got into the equation.

It’s a strange thing to get used to. When the pain subsides I feel a sense of relief. It still hurts but I can feel the decreasing pressure and that’s a small miracle.

Usually it hits me in the office. I have done presentations where I needed to sit down during the talking but have plodded on. I’ve sweated out days where pain-killer got me to the end of the day. By that time, I could get home and the pain subsides enough.

I would not call this a migraine headache because I’ve seen people get those and they are rendered helpless. I can still function just not on all cylinders as indicated by being able to type this. So I’ll eat something, relax, and look forward to taking a not-nap.

September 19, 2010

I blame Don Franklin Andrade

This is my work in progress photo of the MG MS-06J Zaku II “White Ogre” version. It’s hard to see them but did you notice the panel lines?

One of my friends on Flickr is a gentleman by the name of Franklin Andrade who also builds Gundam models as well. You can see some of his setup here, here, and especially HERE. You can view his entire Flickr set at this location.

One of his comments about my MG Gouf 2.0 was that he wanted to see some decals applied. See, that’s the sort of thing that makes me say “Why not?” and the White Ogre comes with water slide decals. But I don’t want to apply the decals unless I also mark the panel lines too.

Thus, I blame Franklin Andrade. 🙂 Thanks to his comment I am not only going to apply decals, but I am also putting on the panel lines. I’m having a great time and so far I am reminding myself that if I make any gross mistakes, I know where to purchase a replacement.

Once I get to the fully detailed stage, I’ll post photo right before I apply the decals.  It will take longer but I think the results and fun will be worth it.

September 12, 2010

Out with the Old

Here’s something I don’t do everyday.

The boxes are from Gunpla that I already assembled. I keep a closet of the models I plan on building as well as the instructions and spare parts from the models I have already put together.

Below is my current list of unassembled models.

I used HobbyLink Japan for reference, but I have purchased these from HobbyLink Japan, Hobby Search, Gundam Store and More, and ImageAnime. I don’t buy things from eBay much, these stores have good prices and always take care of their customers.

Master Grade

High grade

Perfect Grade

Non-Gundam Models

Models that my son expressed an interest in

Extra Models that I won’t build for one reason or another

To manage my Gunpla stash I plan to at least assemble the MG and HG models. The one’s I won’t build I’ll eventually sell off.

This is all about maintaining a hobby and not just hoarding model kits. These are a little more expensive than trading cards. 🙂

September 11, 2010

Completed the MG Gouf v2.0

This was a very straight forward m0del to assemble. No trouble at all and the articulation is very good. With earlier Master Grade models, there was frequently a gotcha. But with these more current versions, it’s all straight forward.

I usually do one or two back to back and the next model I have lined up is the MG Zaku II “White Ogre”. It’s also a version 2.0 Master Grade.

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Jan Dembowski

Jan Dembowski

I am a software enthusiast who is easily amused and definitely mostly harmless.

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