blueZhift Blog

All day I’ve been working on my first Ruby On Rails project. Not out of any trendiness or pure curiousity, though I have been very curious, but out of dogged determination and desperation. I have a project that needs to get done fast, and the initial way I started out just wasn’t going to work for the clients. Indeed, I’ve had to change my whole way of thinking about the problem. Anyway, I think it’s going to work, so I’m very happy and excited about it!

Also today, my cable modem and installation kit came! Yippeee! No more slow and often unreliable *cough*SBC*cough* DSL. Today was a really bad DSL day, I just kept getting dropped over and over, then as if in answer to prayer, the bell rang and behold, UPS with my package. I had prepared my cable arrangement yesterday, so once I configured the software and setup the Comcast account on my main PC to be sure that everything worked, I just had to clone the PC MAC address to my router. It’s all working quite well right now. Double Happieness!

So, feeling good and recalling a “what Evangelion character are you?” discussion with my spouse, I decided to see if there were any of those whimsical online exams around. I answered the questions as best I could and was a bit surprised at the result. I thought I might get a Shinji or Rei, but hey, it’s just fun!

The weather here in Chicago has been pretty lousy for spring weather. Nevertheless, there are signs that the tourists are beginning to return. The return of the tourists usually coincides with the return of interesting new fashions to upper Michigan avenue and of course my favorite Borders bookstore. Yesterday during my usual shopping of the manga, I saw a young woman in a very attractive red plaid skirt with thick soled black shoes. Her stockings/tights were also red with an interesting pattern. It all went very nicely together in a sort of combination the gothic lolita and schoolgirl looks. She was probably a college student or highschooler on spring break.

Red seems to be an early favorite, as the day before I saw another young woman in a short skirt with bright red stockings that went alllllll the wayyyy up! This combo also had goth inspired elements, and she had a matching male companion to boot, no red on him but similar gothic looks.

After leaving the Borders I saw a tall young man with red hair, probably natural from his pale complexion, with matching red Converse style sneakers suitably worn. I don’t think it was an accident that the sneakers were red.

I’m reminded of all of this this morning, because my lovely WillowBrow is wearing a very nice black suit jacket with thin red pinstripes that I helped her pick out a few years back. This is still one of my favorite jackets on her. Sadly she never wears the matching skirt, which shows off her legs very nicely, because she says the slit is too high. Sigh…

Went back to watch the race just in time for Martin Truex Jr. to wreck after a Tony Stewart induced spin. I guess the 5 second delay wasn’t turned on today because Fox broadcast Truex’s crew chief talking to him after the wreck and he referred to the car set up as “a piece of sh*t.” Announcers apologized for the language, but you can bet letters and fines will likely follow. Though, I don’t see how the chief could be fined for communications that are not intended for the public. Nevertheless, a lot of race fans do listen in both at home and the track. Oh well, that’s Bristol baby. BTW, Tony’s not really the bad guy here, Truex was getting into it with Gordon (from earlier an earlier Gordon induced spin) and Tony was being held up behind this nonsense. I guess Tony had enough. Again, that’s Bristol!

Watching the Bristol race today I just saw a Toyota racing ad in which Daryl Waltrip says that his brother Michael will be driving a Toyota in the upcoming 2007 season. Other drivers mentioned were bleeped out in the ad. This isn’t really a big surprise since Michael Waltrip has formed a team that will field two cars in the upcoming season. But, this is the first mention of it in a promotional spot that I’ve seen. (Actually no surprise at all, here’s the earlier announcement, duh…) Anyway, I can’t wait to see how this all works out. Michael’s not having the greatest season right now, but if he can organize a good team backed by some really great equipment and support from Toyota, he should be a strong contender.

Well off to watch the last 90 or so laps!

Soyokaze no Yukue is the opening song of a Japanese adult dating sim game called X-Change 2 (nsfw!). It’s a very catchy and upbeat tune whose lyrics I’ve been looking for for quite some time. I finally decided to accept the challenge of transliterating the song myself. My Japanese skill is minimal at best, but this should be good enough to sing the song. If I ever finish a decent translation, I’ll post that too. Enjoy! BTW, the game is pretty good too.

Soyokaze no Yukue

X-Change 2 Opening Song
Performed by I’ve
Vocals: Aki
Lyrics and Composition: Kazuya Takase

transliterated by blueZhift
March 2006

Mabushii natsu no hizashi ga mado tata itara
Tonireta yume no kakerana tsumadaryuo

Sone zo ne mo ichido tadooteku yubisaki wa joto
Dake yunai de hitotsu ni natte yuku kara

Kira kira toka ga yeku anata no hitori ni
Dakusau no omoide wo tsukuteku
Soyokaze ni nosetai jinai no seshiuna
Yura yura shite ima watashi no omoi

Tookute demo furinagara waratteru hanataba
Tsuni teku kino no onna ka gedo nana underuyo

Urito sonna ga kaze no kao ni ya
Utsunuita watashi no kokoro no
Naka yuuturi michite yuku yo

Kara kau anata nekoo anata no ena wo
Dakusau no omoide wo mokosu kara

Arozo nani kazanaata futari no mirai
Doki doki shinata aruite yuku yo

Kira kira toka ga yeku anata no hitori ni
Dakusau no omoide wo tsukuteku

Arozo nani kazanaata futari no mirai
Doki doki shinata aruite yuku yo

Walking the streets of downtown Chicago, one sight that has become more and more common is that of little Asian girls with white families. In most cases, it was safe to assume that they were a part of the wave of Korean and Chinese adoptions by American families that have taken off over the last few years. It takes a really big heart to adopt any child, and bigger I would say to adopt outside of your ethnic group. But I always wondered how these little girls would face the identity issues of growing up white, but being obviously Asian. Today’s New York Times has an article, Adopted in China, that addresses some of these questions that’s a really interesting read. I printed it out and passed it along to my oldest daughter, who being black and Chinese must confront some of the same issues.

One thing I am convinced of is that on the whole, these adoptions are a good thing. For the girls this is easy to see, but also for the parents and for the U.S.. As the parents of girls who are obviously not white, living in areas where the level of diversity is low and attitudes may be, let’s say, less enlightened, they have to face the problems of race in America head on. Being a parent is one of life’s most transforming experiences and there is no one you will fight for harder than your own kids. For these families in the suburbs, race is no longer something they left behind in the city, it’s the real thing. And I have no doubt that these families are going to be a force to reckon with in the fight for justice and equality.

Another Monday has rolled around, so what better thing to kick off the new week than a little piece about PSP porn…ugh not exactly. I was looking at the web logs over the weekend and noticed a bunch of searches for PSP porn. Of course, people searching for porn or pr0n on the internet is nothing new, but it did get me thinking about movies on the PSP so I checked Sony’s list of movies available in the UMD format and from that put up a new site, PSPStuffnJunk. This may not satisfy people looking for PSP porn movies, but it might make it a little easier to find a few titles on the internet. This first list features movies that mostly feature what one might call “babes in action”. It really isn’t finished yet, and later I’ll add some other genres. Enjoy! Here’s that link again, PSPStuffnJunk.

BTW, this totally begs the question of whether UMD really has any future in light of the increasing size of memory sticks and greater availability of downloadable movies and television shows.

I saw someone’s dream today. It was a ’57 Chevy parked on the street. It was in terrible shape with faded paint, rust, and a shattered windshield. I wondered why anyone would keep it around? It wasn’t abandoned because I think I’ve seen it parked in other places from time to time. So I concluded that someone still held out the hope of restoring it. That rusting hulk was probably a placeholder for someone’s dream. I wonder what rusting hulks are placeholders for my dreams.

Just another morning full of thoughts as I approached work today, suddenly brightened up by the sight of an attractive black woman with nice legs and really high spikes. As I got closer, I also noticed that she was very short and began to wonder if shorter women tended to wear higher spiked heels. Since I don’t generally like to get too close to people, I adjusted my course to give her plenty of room. A good thing too, because she started wobbling back and forth right into my path. My first guess was that she was either drunk or high, then I noticed the cell phone seemingly glued to the right side of her head. She was so engaged in conversation that I’m not really sure she even saw me there as we nearly collided, but it did give me a chance to see that she had a pretty face as well!

So I guess today’s lesson is, high spikes and cell phones don’t mix!

Over on Slashdot today, a minor flame war has erupted over whose linux distribution is better in Will Novell’s Desktop Linux Catch On. The usual assertions that you need a company to provide full support behind a distribution, like Redhat or Novell, have been raised. And in particular, some felt that Ubuntu had no chance because it doesn’t have some big sponsoring company or an enterprise edition with paid support. This got me to thinking that just having internet forums and IRC channels is not going to be enough for open source software support if it is to get into the hands of “ordinary” people and gain mindshare from Windows and its applications. There really needs to be an Open Source Support Network.

The Open Source Support Network would consist of volunteers around the world who would take shifts fielding email, instant messages, and (gasp!) phone calls from people who need help with open source applications and Linux. This would essentially be a free, worldwide call center that Jane, Joe, Huang, and Hakim User could call to get help with OpenOffice, Linux, and other open source apps.

Of course, talk is cheap and such an undertaking would first require a well thought out organizational structure and a deep enough pool of knowledgeable volunteers to operate 24/7/365, and of course, money. But I don’t really think it would be too much beyond the kind of effort that has gone into the Mozilla, and Apache foundations to name a couple. Such a support organization could finally put to rest the often raised criticism that nobody is really supporting open source software by giving people a number to call when they need help. And as a bonus, the building of such a support network would probably advance the art of customer technical support itself which would benefit everyone.

A guy can dream, right?