All I can say is: shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits.

Props to anyone who gets the joke.

The trip was rather pleasant. It was good to spend some time with my Mom, solving the worlds problems while the country side passed by. I was impressed with the hills of Ohio and the lush greenery. For some reason I expected it to flat and boring like Illinois and Indiana. There were a lot of really cool old barns and farm houses, slowly being reclaimed by the wilderness.

The whole trip it seemed like we had luck on our side as after getting to a family friend's house with no trouble, we were able to locate places and people that we weren't sure how to find, and our timing always seemed to work out just right.

It was a strange place in some ways. The town is dominated by Ohio University, and it's very much a typical college town. Educated and intellectual. But just 15 minutes outside town, in the country, there are homes that are little more than shacks and I'd swear I could hear the music from Deliverance being played somewhere, and I saw the most horribly awesome Mullet EVER. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it. It was scary bad.

One of my Mom's friends told us Athens County is the poorest in Ohio, and I'd have to say that seemed likely. Some of the poverty I witnessed would have not been surprising if we had been in a third world country. The fact that we were just outside a midwest college town made it a bit shocking. Then you get into town and there are beautiful houses set into the hill sides.

We even managed to find the farm house that used to belong to my family. It has changed a bit (according to my Mom), but it's still there.

My camera got a good work out. I wish I could have taken more pictures, but we had a rather busy schedule. I did manage to get some good pictures nevertheless.

BTW, if anyone wants 10.6 acres of land 20 minutes outside of Athens, Ohio, let me know.

I have been really happy with it so far.

I will be heading to Ohio to take care of some family business as well as see the place of my birth (we moved to California when I was a year old, so it'll all be new to me). I plan to give the camera a good work out, as I'm sure there will be a lot of great scenery.

I don't think it's unreasonable of me to want the weather to be a bit more consistent from day to day.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;

if ( scalar(@ARGV) < 1 ) { die "No filename given!" }

my $file  = shift(@ARGV);
my $file2 = "$file-new";

open( FILE, "<$file" )
    or die "can't open $file: $!";
open( FILE2, ">$file2" )
    or die "can't open $file2: $!";
my $count = 1;
while ( my $line =  ) {
    if ( $line =~ /^(INSERT INTO .*? VALUES)/ ) {
        my $insert = $1;
        $line =~ s/\),\(/\);\n$insert \(/g;
        print "line $count: ", sprintf("%.2fk\n", length($line)/1024);
    }
    $count++;
    print FILE2 $line;
}
close(FILE);
close(FILE2);

exit(0);

(Via Schneier on Security.)

Lately I just don't care all that much about stuff like that. But I do want to feel like I am contributing something, and I don't mean giving money to charity.

As everyone who knows me knows, I am a Star Wars freak. As in I dress up like a Stormtrooper for fun on weekends as a member of the 501st Legion. The cool thing about the legion is that when we do an event all we ask is that the people requesting our presence donate money to a charity in the name of the legion. That way we do good while indulging in our geeky hobby. Some events are silly (children's birthday parties), and some are very serious. Sometimes our presence is charity in and of itself.

We have an event coming up in August that is serious indeed. We will be visiting a camp for terminally ill children. These kids will most likely be dead within a year after we visit. In the long term meaning of life sort of context this visit does nothing. These children are doomed to die tragic deaths, what good will meeting a bunch of Star Wars characters do in the long run? These kids have no 'long run'. Still, I consider this event the most important one I have ever done and I am really looking forward to making those kids smile, even if for only a moment.

And I will be very glad that I will have a helmet on to hide the tears.

Already found the five differences? Try to find here now. Thanks to carl for the submit.

@ haha.nu.

(Via haha.nu.)

I was really shocked and saddened to hear he's gone.

Every loss of life diminishes those around them, but Lance touched a lot of people and his loss will widely be felt.