When did this happen? I was driving home from work last night down North Gulph and saw a sign that looked like it read 'Hooters'. I thought to myself, "Did they open a new Hooters in King of Prussia?" Are there now two? As I got close, sure enough, it did say Hooters. It seems that there's a new Hooters where KoP Denny's used to be. In my travels last night, I drove past the existing Hooters site, only to find that that bitch was closed the fuck down. Light off. DUN! Dayum!

Evidently, they moved the location off 202. It would seem like this was as of yesterday. Who knew?

It's funny to think that the place that I spent so much of my youth terrorizing (KP Denny's), is now the place which I terrorize in my adult life. It might be interesting because as far as I know, the new location is smaller. I can recall stories of us sticking forks in the drop ceilings and people setting their faces on fire (Sydd). To think, that was nearly ten years ago.

Labels: Bars, Hot Bitches

As I'm sitting here reinstalling software on my laptop, I've made a decision. In order to save hard drive space, I have decided not to install any Visual Studio 6 components or Visual Studio 2002/2003 components. Therefore I will no longer be supporting any legacy app development. All of my applications that were built with earlier versions of the studio will be ported to Visual Studio 2005 if code was not already developed in parallel. Visual Studio Add-Ins will continue to have backwards compatibility with 2002/2003 versions, but will be built by, deployed by, and targeted to Visual Studio 2005/2008.

Labels: ASP.Net, C Sharp, Javascript, Programming, Technology, VB.Net, Web Development, Work

I've recently become addicted to the show, Heroes.

When it first aired, I couldn't watch it. Not because I didn't like it, but because I didn't catch it from the beginning of the series. I'm funny that way. If I don't catch something from the beginning, I can't watch it because I have no context of what's going on.

Everyone I talked to, especially Bob Hackett said to watch this show. This past Saturday and Sunday G4 started showing a marathon of all the season one episodes in preparation for the new season (which to the best of my understanding will air on NBC, MOJO, and G4). I decided to take a look. I must admit. Damn, I'm hooked.

The show itself is so well done. It's fucking fascinating. I couldn't stop watching it. It actually has characters with depth, plotlines you can follow, and an oh-so engaging story.

I won't go too deep into the story because I just watched the entire first season over two days. But I will share some notes and impressions.

First, fan-bloody-tastic show! I will admit, there are one or two scenes stolen directly from X-Men comics, but we can overlook that.

Two, well done Hayden Panettiere. She's really grown up. She's a great actress, especially for being so young. I remember when she was on Guiding Light playing little Lizzie with leukemia (as we used to call her) like back in 1999. YES, I WATCHED GUIDING LIGHT! Deal with it. I worked nights and there was nothing on but soaps during the day. I knew then that she was a remarkable young actress. She was so sickeningly sweet that I wanted to punch her in the face. Most child actors don't have that depth to play a role so accurately. I find that if I want to punch them in the face, that they are usually quite a talented performer. Other examples are Haley Joel Osment, Dakota Fanning, and that Welch's grape juice bitch. All punchworthy.

Third, Tawny Cypress...YEAH! Oh, shit. This girl is hot! I first saw her on K'Ville as Ginger 'Love Tap' Lebeau. A S.W.A.T. officer that you wouldn't mind having her kick your ass a little. Finally, a reason to support police brutality. With that light mulatto skin, curly hair, sparkling blue/green eyes, and big luscious lips...ooh, dat's my shit! Y'all know I like them bitches of dubious ethnicity. She only shows up every couple of episodes as an ancillary character, but it's reason enough to watch the show. But then I saw her in Heroes. She plays an art dealer named Simone Deveaux, girlfriend of the tortured, junkie artist, Isaac Mendez (played by Santiago Cabrera) who paints the future, and love interest of hospice nurse Peter Petrelli (played by Milo Ventimiglia) who absorbs the powers of those around him. My god! In K'Ville, she's tough as nails. In Heroes, she's gorgeous and vulnerable. I'd like to see more from this actress, and not just because she make my penis happy.

Fourth (and final comment). Please please, please don't let Heroes go the way of Lost, where they took a fantastic and revolutionary idea and turned it into incomprehensible shit in the second season. I couldn't even watch lost halfway through the second season because it jumped the shark so many times.

America, I urge you to watch Heroes. And if you're like me, you can't watch something from the middle, pick up the first season on DVD today.

Labels: TV

Here I am on a Sunday night, backing up my files from my laptop yet again. I have to reinstall my OS because some shit I installed trashed my Wireless adapter, causing my services (services.exe) to crash every time I boot up. F-Guk! I have another three days of reinstalling software to look forward to.

What prompted me to install this crap ass software was me getting banned from allmusic.com. I needed something to disguise my IP address. I should have just went with TOR like everyone else. Instead, I went with the first thing I found on Google and tried to download a cracked version which had several trojans in it. My Anti-Virus software stripped out the trojans like it should have, but left the installer in a fucked up state. Dammit. Should have known better, but this is why I do this type of shit on MY PC.

Oh well. Maybe this time I won't install quite so much shit. I may actually have room for my music library (which is well over 45 GB) and my software to coexist on the same box. At some point, probably not until after Christmas, I will buy a new laptop with a substantially bigger hard drive. I'm going to try for 200 GB at least. I'll probably end up selling my laptop to Alan for cheap, or just giving it to someone who needs a laptop.

Labels: Rants, Technology, Web Development

Since I've been watching the Heroes marathon on G4, I missed what the premier movies on cable were tonight. As I'm flipping through the channels after midnight looking for replays, I caught Smokin' Aces on Cinemax.

I must admit, I had been wanting to see this movie. I like the occasional bang-bang shoot-em-up. It's a relief from the truly cinematic films I watch. I saw with this one, that it not only had a huge cast of names and faces that I know, but that cast included two of my favorite musicians in bad-ass roles; Common and Alicia Keys. I love it when my people like Mos Def and Jill Scott, become actors and do it well. I have yet to see Talib Kweli in a role, but I suspect he's out there.

Common was just a bad ass muh fucka named Ivy. Just a do-dirt nigga. Bad to the bone. I love it.

My Sexy beautiful girl Alicia Keys plays a hit man, er, hit woman named Georgia who comes ready for war. Not only is she ultra sexy, posing as a hooker to infiltrate security, but she carries some mean guns, and cusses like a man.

I'm already in love with Alicia Keys, but hearing her cuss like that, turned me on like a switch. Sometimes I like a girl with a really dirty mouth. Not so much because it's a part of her everyday speech pattern because it's part of her environment (A.K.A. - Ghetto Mouf), but because she's confident enough and comfortable in her own skin, enough to not have to censor herself around those she's comfortable with. My one caveat to that is you must be a lady in the streets.

That's the kind of shit I could roll with.

Labels: Hot Bitches, Movies, Music, TV

Summummabitch!

As some of you know, I've been scouring content from the web to make my MP3 collection pages more SEO friendly. So of course with my huge collection of songs it would take until the end of the next millennium to gather reviews, artist bios, and lyrics manually. Naturally, I built a tool.

Now of course, my tool has to be as unnecessarily sophisticated as it can be, which means I'm doing major website scraping, multithreading, thread pumping and dynamic throttling. I ran my tool for every artist/album/track in my collenction against AMG and other sites. Over 30,000 website hits in a matter of a few hours. Collected everything I could. Sweet.

Of course as I'm reviewing my results, I realize there's a major bug in my screen scraping routine. D'oh! I go to run my tool again, and suddenly, I get no results. I check my search result manually and this is the message I get any time I do a search on AMG from my home laptop:

Through traffic monitoring of our websites we have identified your IP address accessing allmusic.com at a rate and speed inconsistent with the noncommercial and personal use permitted by our site's Terms of Service. As a result, further access to allmusic.com has been denied. Because IP addresses can be shared by numerous users, your access may be being denied based on the aggregate use of your IP address rather than your own individual use. To ensure that this is not the case, simply create your own individual user account by becoming a Registered Member of allmusic. [Click on the “Register” button in the upper right hand corner of the home page.] Once you’ve become a Registered Member and are logged in, you will once again have full access to allmusic, and will continue to have access, as long as your usage remains consistent with our Terms of Service. If you are already a Registered Member of allmusic, simply ensure that you are logged in when you use the site. Thank you. - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Dammit!

Though technically, it is for personal use, I suppose I could see how after reviewing their logs they could interpret my usage as a Denial of Service attack. Come on, what If I were a search engine spider? Hehe. I just thought that was way too fuckin' funny! Now of course, you know me. I'm not going to let this stop me, but this was great! Hah!

Labels: ASP.Net, Comedy, Programming, Technology, VB.Net, Web Development

As you may notice, it is now 4:40 AM and I'm on my computer blogging. I woke up at 4 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. As I tried to get back to sleep, I realized I couldn't for three reasons.

I couldn't lay on my side because of how hungry I was.
I couldn't lay on my side because of how horny I was.
I couldn't turn off my mind.

That's when I had a revelation albeit a minor one.

Typically, I sleep with the TV on. It's almost like a nightlight/alarm clock. I watch TV until I fall asleep. I don't even bother turning it off. I just watch whatever I'm watching until I fade away.

I'm so attached to it that I rarely know what it's like to sleep without it. When Jade and I would sleep together, we would sleep with the TV on. She was the same way.

I decided to try an experiment last night. I was done what I was doing for the night, turned off all the downstairs lights and headed up to bed. I got into the bedroom and hadn't turned on the lights at all. Completely dark. The realization was that I couldn't find my remote control in the sheets. After groping around in the dark, I didn't even turn the TV on. I thought it would be a welcome and calming change to sleep without my dependency. My electric bill will thank me.

Here's what I've discovered. I use the TV as a mental distraction. Without it, I can't shut my mind off. As someone who spends a great deal of time in my own head, I have a near constant inner monologue. With nothing drowning it out, the volume gets amplified. I can't shut my mind up.

I know that sounds crazy... and it probably is. I can't tune out the voice in my head. Thank god it's only one voice.

I find myself pondering philosophy, giving life lessons, writing blog entries, having fantasies, thinking about the next day, dreaming up new code-based solutions, website designs, etc. The only thing that stops this deluge of thought during the day is that it's constantly interrupted by speaking, or working.

I think I woke up, fully awake at 4 AM because my own mind had no one to listen to it. I think this is what it must be like to be truly insane. I think crazy people just don't know how to suppress or absorb the inner monologue. It just becomes completely overwhelming. Fortunately, I have been living with my own inner monologue for a very long time.

Labels: Insomnia, Life, Philosophizing

The Boondocks is back on Adult Swim and is as good as ever.

My man Huey is still the young revolutionary. Striving to destroy the system from within. Huey is everything I was when I was 16. Hyperintelligent with an afro and generally disenchanted with everything around him.
Granddad is still an old coot. Who reminds me very much of my own father.
Riley is still the flaming ghetto id.

I always thought The Boondocks was the best shit for black people on television. It crosses so many lines without being totally damaging to the perception of black folks in America. Instead, it highlights our flaws and shows them for just what they are...flaws. Just like everyone else has. Rather than glorifying our flaws like most other shuckin' and jivin'-ass black television shows today, Boondocks takes a rye look at them and states the need for change, or at least change of perception.

You know, the fact that they will drop the "N-Bomb" at least a dozen times per episode doesn't even bother me. It's so revolutionary. It's just what the industry needs. Also the fact that it makes white people cringe because they know that only we could get away with it, makes me smile.

Thank you Aaron McGruder

Webster defines the "nigga moment" as a moment when ignorance overwhelms the mind of an otherwise logical Negro male. Causing him to act in an illogical, self-destructive manner... i.e. like a nigga.
If Nigga Moments had their own category, Nigga Moments would be the third leading killer of black men behind pork chops and F.E.M.A. It's a fact.

The following is the definitive list of the top ten killers of black men, according to the Bob Mayo Clinic:

1. F.E.M.A.
2. Pork chops
3. Nigga Moments
4. HIV/AIDS
5. L.A.P.D.
6. N.Y.P.D.
7. The 'Itis
8. Bitches
9. Malt Liquor
10. White People

Oddly enough, Tonight's episode of The Boondocks made a scary parallel to my life.

A Pimp Named Slickback states the following:

"Your friends have reason to believe that you are suffering from Chronic Bitch Dependency. Bitch dependency is no laughing matter. Addiction to a bitch can fuck with your friends, your health, and scary enough, even your money. It's a disease, Tom."

"Did you know that scientists believe that some people are born with a genetic predisposition to bitch dependency?"

Sound familiar?

Labels: Comedy, Life, Society, TV

This is my barely coherent, rant on tattoos and piercings in popular culture today. Feel free to sound off on this. This is just my opinion.

You know, I remember exactly when it was that tattoos became a fashion statement. It was around 1997. I remember I was a junior in high school. I was sitting in Chemistry class and Dave Lacey, a 16-year old sophomore football player came into class with a blue & gold tattoo around his bicep.

This was it. Tattoos had officially become part of popular culture. When a 16-year old's parents authorize him to get a tattoo, it's no longer tabooo.

Right around then, the popularity of body art had really exploded. Camryn Manheim (The Practice) had eighty-nine earrings in her ear, Rosanna Arquette (Pulp Fiction) had 16 various piercings. Kids wanted to follow along. Tribal tattoos, barbed wire tattoos, and nipple, eyebrow, nose, belly button, clitoral piercings and tongue studs were the latest trends in the mid-to-late nineties.

I remember there was this wannabe rebel freshman girl who was in the choir. She was a really excellent soprano. She had every chance to excel, but somehow had that mental wiring that made her sabotage everything good. She started hinting to the choir director that she wanted to get a piercing. She would drop questions like, "If I get a tongue stud, how will that affect my voice?" The response was, "If you get a tongue stud, you're out of my choir." So of course she got the stud.

Anyway, back to the point. It used to be that a tattoo was a badge of rebellion. If you were a dude and you got a tat, you were a bad ass, hands down. Before then, you only got a tattoo if you were in prison or in the Navy.

If you were a chick and you had a tattoo (which was almost unheard of), you were a total slut. Usually in the good way. If it was on your ass, you could be that librarian/secretary in public, but a wildcat behind closed doors. You know what I mean?

That's how it used to be, anyway.

In the nineties, every drunken fratboy had a barbed wire tattoo or tribal patterns. Every chick had a flower or a dolphin in the small of her back or her ankle.

Nowadays, it's out of control. Tattoos used to mean something. Whether it was a badge of honor, or a display of passion or self expression. It was something.

Today everyone and their momma has a tattoo. Kids have nothing better to do. Tattoos are nothing more than an accessory. Something to go with their Prada handbag. 10 years ago the concept of having a cuff or a sleeve was reserved for those who were truly hardcore. Today, everyone is covered in tats. It's not uncommon to see people with more ink than skin.

It's just that tats and piercings are so commonplace in the new millennium, that they've lost all value. If someone says, "I have a tattoo" Yeah, well so does everybody. There's no shock value in anything anymore.

Tats would have gotten you disowned from your family ten years ago. Today, you could sit down at the family dinner table and discuss your fresh ink. It's so commercial that there are multiple television shows around tattoos artists.

PLEASE don't get me wrong.

I'm not against tattoos or piercings. I even have a few, myself. I have a treble clef on my left bicep, which means a great deal to me. It wasn't just a whim like people get. I had been planning on getting this symbol of my passion since I was a teenager. I have three piercings in my left ear, one in my right, and I've had my right eyebrow pierced more times than I can remember.

Anyone has the right to do whatever they want with their body. It's not my place to say what anyone else should do. It's just that people are getting more and tats which mean nothing to them. just because they saw something on TV. People get Chinese writing on their necks because it's trendy.

Ordinarily, I think tattoos on a woman can be ultra sexy if done tastefully and discreetly. One or two only. Small and somewhere like an ankle or the small of the back, or even on a hip. It's kind of like a little treasure. Not a friggin' billboard across your stomach.

I was at orientation for YellowBook and there was this girl with at least four tattoos below the sleeve line and two more on her neck. No one batted an eye.

I just wonder where we'll be in another ten years. Less and less shocks us. What is left? I've gone to strip clubs and seen strippers that were literally covered in tats. I wasn't even shocked. It's not so much about the tats themselves, but about how easily people will get them and the fact that it's of little or no consequence.

I don't know. That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Labels: Hot Bitches, Life, Philosophizing, Pop Culture, Rants, Society, Tattoos

Congratulate me, dammit!

I've acheived over 10,000 songs in my personal music library. We have the acquisition of Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace for putting me over the top.

Come check out my music library. If I like you, I may even share some of it with you.

Labels: Music

I was downloading some music the other day And if any of you know me, I MUST have my album artwork for every track.

So I got some Alicia Keys remixes. To be more specific, Dance Vault Remixes - Diary. That's when I saw it. Oooooh.

The cover to this album has Alicia Keys topless (with her back to the camera). In the small of her back, which incidentally is THE sexiest part of a woman, next to the nape of her neck, she has a tattoo of two bass clefs opposing each other to form the shape of a heart.

Oh. My. God.

Damn, that's sexy. By now you should know my personal policy on female tattoos: in moderation. That's perfect. Already I'm in love with Alicia Keys, because Lawd Jeezus she's beautiful, and she's an amazing musician with a beautiful soul. The tattoo was merely the culmination. It matches perfectly with my treble clef on my own arm. Doesn't that sound like a match made in heaven? Alicia just made the top of the wifey list.

Now it would seem that the tattoo isn't real. Still. Just the thought of it is damn sexy. Here's another example of a temporary tattoo she was sporting in the small of her back that reads THINK 4 URSELF.

God Damn she is sexy. Think of the kind of person that would get a tattoo (permanent, magic marker, or otherwise) that would make a bold intellectual statement, not just a fashion statement.

Labels: Hot Bitches, Music, Tattoos

...why there's lettuce in the urinal?