Archive for February, 2010

The Game They Invented

February 23rd, 2010

Create A Caption – White House

February 23rd, 2010

Create A Caption:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/photogallery/february-2010-photo-day-0

Empire State Of Hackers

February 3rd, 2010

I came into work on Monday morning, and I had an email waiting for me from my web hosting company.  It read:

Please be advised that your account, andymorales.com, is approaching one or more resource allotments. Details are provided below…In the last 30 days, your account used 73GB of 75GB. If, on 02/26/2010, your rolling 30-day bandwidth total exceeds your bandwidth allotment, you will be automatically billed $12.00 for every 1GB over your allotment.

I was caught off guard.  My website, though it is very robust, does not take up a lot of space on my server.  I also don’t have many items on my site that could be downloaded or that could cause that much traffic.  So I examined my stats, and it appeared that I was getting slammed.

I first looked up the stats from the previous day, January 31, 2010.

Mixture of stats from January 31, 2010

85 Thousand Times!

The first thing I noticed was the amount of KB’s transferred.  That is a ton!  Other stats that I found interesting were that the majority of people were using the outdated and troubled IE6 browser.  I clicked on the link in the stats for the top two referring sites, to only get blocked at work by Websense, for “mp3 file sharing.”  And then I saw what was being transferred–Jay-Z.  Now its a great song so I certainly don’t blame them, but cmon, almost 5 thousand downloads in the one day!  Why is China, chinese search engines and file sharing sites locking on to me and a song that I had on my site.

I then reviewed my stats for the past month, and not just the one day.  The Jay-Z song was downloaded 85 thousand times.

Every fews months I put on my home page 3 songs that I have been listening to often.  It is a way to share both my musical tastes with people,  but also an easy way to listen to the song when away from my ipod.  A user can go to my home page and click the play button and find out what I am currently digging.

If you go there currently, you will see that I removed the mp3 files, and that if you currently click on play, nothing will play.  I had to do this because of this traffic issue, and these sites.  Hopefully I can figure out an alternative way to post these items since this has been one of my favorite features of my site.

Im not sure what was sadder though.  The fact that I got slammed by China, or the amount of times the different songs were grabbed.  Jay-Z was grabbed almost 5 thousand times.  Phoenix only about 600.  And sadly, Belle and Sebastian only about 60 times.  Poor Belle and Sebastian.  Its a genius song however.

I’m Going Nowhere Lately

February 2nd, 2010

I have been feeling a little bit like Ray Lamontagne lately.  Maybe a little bit of Dave Grohl (that dude is extremely talented, btw).  Although I have made an effort this year to be more pro-active with my guitar playing and learning, that is not the similarity to these rockers that I have been feeling.  I decided to grow a beard.  San Diego doesn’t get that cold in winter, but its a fun thing to do to try and stay warm.

Growing hair is an ocean wave that tosses between tediously annoying, and exhiliratingly fun.  Sometimes you have to wade through the annoying and ugly times, to enjoy the fun trancedent times.  Maybe this is too philosophical for a snide about facial hair.

The last time that I grew my face out, I trimmed my mustache so that it would remain above my lip.  This time I decided for the walrus bushy look to my mustache as I have let it grow as long as it can, and it covers both of my lips even.  This has caused some difficulties.  When I sip water from a stryofoam cup while at my desk, minutes later I will feel water dripping down my lip and chin.  The mustache just gets in the way.  I will go out to a neighborhood bar for a Guinness and I will have a beer lip from the froffy head of the delicious beer.

But far and away the most difficult part is when I have to open my mouth wide to take a bite of something, most often, a delicious sandwich, or a rustic salad.  I will open my mouth, go to take a bite, and as I bite down I will grip my mustache hair between my sandwich and my sharp teeth.  As my teeth dig into the sandwich, my hair will tug from my upper lip.  This is quite painful.  But like how I treat life, I pride myself on endurance, longevity, loyalty and dedication, and of course stupidty.

I started growing the beard in November, and I hope to continue through to April.  Some people declare March as Mustache month, so perhaps I will shave down to just the stache then.  Though, maybe I will still be loving the poetic rocker look and continue to go Eddie Vedder on my face.

My beards in the past, have been multi-colored.  They have been like the United Colours of Bennetton.  They have been mixtures of brown, black, blonde and oddly, red.  However this time there have been some strands of grey.  You can’t really see them in the pictures that I put here, cause there are only a few.  What you think you may see in the pictures is just odd lighting.  But yes, my beard now even has some grey.  I am older, wiser and more mysterious.

And yes, I just did a long obnoxious post about my facial hair.

Another Year, Another Knee

February 2nd, 2010

It was almost a year ago, to the date, that I made a Snide with some images of a knee surgery I had last year on December 30, 2008.  Well, this year on January 19, 2010 I had the same type of surgery, but this time on my right knee.  They went in and cleaned out my shredded cartilege.  Hopefully I will be back to sport much quicker than last time.

I was very nervous due to the issue I had last time with the anesthesia.  I watched them shave my leg and I told them of this fear.  They told me they would be gentle, and the next thing I knew was I was out.It was much rougher coming out of it all.  I was coughing, sneezing, and had a blistering headache.

My Mother took good care of me for the week I stayed at their house, and I watched movies and t.v shows–some that I love, and some that I would not typically waste 2 hours on.  As I laid in bed, with my leg elevated the laptop was my best friend.

The pictures do not look as bad as last time, and the healing has been going much smoother.  However the doctor did say something concerning about a “divot” they saw, but I haven’t been able to ask more about this yet.  This time there was video, although short snippets.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8CxI9FoGaE&feature=player_embedded

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2cDEI17a2E&feature=player_embedded

 

Click on an Image below for a slideshow.

Every Week

February 2nd, 2010

This Week I'm Thinking About: Jason Roth