Random Blahgging - Randomness

You know you are a geek when…

Your DisplayName here! — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:27:00 GMT

While writing in a word processor, you try to use code comments to comment-out a line you have written which you are not quite sure belongs in the document.

It's true - there I was, writing a talk I needed to give, and after writing a line and thinking that I was not sure it belonged, I hit the 'Home' key to get to the beginning of the line, and typed "//" and thought the line would go green, indicating it was commented-out (which is what it does in Visual Studio). I need more sleep!

Have you ever done something similar?

Upgraded dasBlog

Your DisplayName here! — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 22:35:52 GMT

I finally upgraded to dasBlog 1.7 today, my previous version was over a year old. I have been getting a ton of referral spam from some not-so-savory sites over the last 3 days, and in order to facilitate combatting that problem, I figured I would upgrade since the latest and greatest has features to help alleviate this unfortunate nuisance - not to mention the other features that make this upgrade worth the extra time.

I don't pretend to know much about the inner workings of RSS and such, but apparently the upgrade caused my RSS feed to show old posts as new in my aggregator. For the 2 other people that aggregate me, I apologize for this.

I hope to start blogging soon about O/R mapping and code gen issues, since those are the things I find the most interesting at this point in my career, but I make no promises. :P

[EDIT: Just noticed that some of the comments were lost in the conversion . . . oh well, I will just have to manually replace those . . . if I care that much.]

Lawn Dart Ban

Mon, 14 Jun 2004 23:47:30 GMT

Recently my mother-in-law purchased a set for playing bocce ball. While we are not going for professional-level playing, we are looking to have a little fun out in the green grass of her backyard (we play with my brother-in-law and his wife). This backyard game had me thinking back to my youth and the fact that I had played a few games of lawn darts. What a great game! Well, I wondered what happened to that game because I never see any for sale . . . and in the back of my mind I thought, "I bet those things are illegal." Well, sure enough - they are (my subconscious told me, I am sure - they were banned in 1988 and I was probably made aware of that fact then, but had forgotten). So, you can read the official declaration by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) right here.

For those of you too young to remember, or never blessed enough to have played, you can find a picture of people playing an illegal game of lawn darts here, here, and here. And for those who feel up to a little competition, these guys hold a lawn dart tournament every year! ("Jarts" was a brand name of lawn darts, probably the best made).

So, here is why I think this is idiotic: To quote from the text of the ban, "Effective December 19, 1988, all lawn darts are banned from sale in the United States. Lawn darts, used in an outdoor game, have been responsible for the deaths of 3 children." Yes, it is sad that 3 children died from some altercation involving a lawn dart (or darts). Notice I didn't say that they "died from playing" lawn darts. It is moot regardless, but just because something causes death doesn't mean you should immediately ban it - I mean, I am sure a bocce ball would do the same if the circumstances were just right. Not to mention the fact that many people have died from injuries related to football (an obvious understatement). Should we ban football? Baseball? Help me live people, this is lunacy! Yes, 3 dead people are 3 too many, but more people die from walking down the street every day - should we ban that too?!?! ARGH!!!!! Apparently someone at the CPSC had an axe to grind. Maybe someone there had lost a few too many games of lawn darts and thought to exact revenge on his/her opponents by banning the sport . . . I know, I am just rambling now but this is seriously stupid. I think one of the presidential candidates should have as part of their plan the bringing back of this great sport. I think it would go far to bring peace and unity to the world. I think Osama bin Laden would be a lot nicer if he could play a few games of lawn darts.

By the way if you or anyone you know is looking to sell a set or two of lawn darts, please let me know . . . I want them purely for a collector's item . . . yeah, yeah . . .

[Update: Saw this online just now and had to add it . . .]