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So it appears that John Kerry is coming to my town.  Ugg.  If that’s not bad enough they’re closing all of downtown down for him.  Instead of just going to one of our fine parks or some other location to talk they’re setting up the stupid event in the middle of the street!  That’s right!  The middle of the street in downtown which is also a state highway!  There is heavy traffic on that road 24/7/365. 

It’s not even just a single block where he’ll be speaking.  It’s about 5 blocks long and a block on either side of the main street.  That’s just about the entire city when you get down to it.  I don’t care who you are, you don’t shutdown a city like this.  Of course this is nothing new really.  This town loves to shut down this area for all sorts of events from car shows to art festivals. 

Anyhoo, I’ll be getting together with some of my former College Republicans and protesting.  We’ll make some silly signs tonight and meet up tomorrow afternoon.  The only thing I really wish for would be rain.  It’s not suppose to but it would be so great if a major storm rolled through right as the event was suppose to start.

Discussion has started for the next Toledo Nerd Dinner.  It appears tentatively scheduled for August 5th at the same location as before, EasyStreet.

The first one was fun so I highly suggest anyone in the Toledo, Ohio area that is interested to think about attending.  Last time it was rather open ended and everyone just sort of chatted about random topics.  It will probably be the same at least for the next one too.  Hopefully in future ones there can be some topic chosen and a presentation of some sorts take place.  I don’t think the presentation would be anything fancy just someone that is knowledgeable about a topic could do a short talk.  I think that would make it more interesting for everyone that attends.

Please stop by A Short Domain Name and leave your comments about the time, location, etc.

This is pretty cool.  It looks like Microsoft has finally realized that Visual Studios is just plain overkill for the hobby and student programmers.  They’ve created stripped down versions of all their language products.

I’m really happy to see this.  Although I have no problems using Visual Studio Professional I know it is rather complex and overwhelming for most people.  The hobby or student programmer just wants a simple IDE Integrate Development Environment) and compiler for their language.  Something they can start up and get coding without become confused and bewildered with all sorts of mostly useless junk.

They’re still in beta so not much is known but it appears the Express Editions will be very small in size and features so that they could be downloaded and while not free will probably be very cheap.  These are the two things I would expect being designed for hobbyist.  A hobbyist doesn’t want to have to build a top of the line computer in order to do development and they sure don’t want to have to spend hundreds of dollars on development tools.

Check out the website and read up.  These might be a good choice for those interested in playing with software development without going into it full bore.

Friday, July 30th, 2004 is System Administrator Appreciation Day.

This is the day when you’re suppose to take the time to acknowledge all the hard work those computer gurus do for your business.  Similar to the Secretary Day you are suggested to buy a gift for the sysadmin.  Of course unlike most secretaries you can’t get away with flowers.  Sysadmins are techies and would want some cool new gadget or toy.

Personally, I suggest instead of buying a gadget or toy that bosses do something nice for their sysadmin and authorize their purchase orders!  They probably have a large list of hardware and software they want to buy to upgrade the business’s systems that you’ve probably refused in the past.  Do them and you a favor and let them get that hardware and software!

You can learn more about it at the official website http://www.sysadminday.com/.

Sunday, October 17, 2004 at 9:00pm eastern to be exact!

Dedicated Farscape fans - 1
Money grubbing tv execs - 0

Excuse me while I go do a happy happy joy joy dance for a moment…

ok I’m back! 

Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars will be a 4 hour mini-series based upon what was planned for the 5th and final season of farscape.  That was before the ass-hats at Sci-Fi went and cancelled it.  The main goal though is that they are able to clean up the cliffhanger that was left at the end of season 4.

Not much about the story is known but as time goes I’m sure the plot will get leaked.  Of course the obvious thing and in my mind all that I really care about is that Aeryn will have the baby.  Probably not until the end of the mini-series but I don’t think they would skip this one crucial and important area.  They know every fan wants to see that baby.

Anyways, I’m just really excited and can’t wait.  It’s been over a year and a half since the series was cancelled.  It was announced on Friday, September 6th, 2002 for those that didn’t know.  This was in the middle of the 4th season and just a few months after SciFi had made a big announcement about being excited to renew for the 4th and 5th season, which would be the last. 

In this time the fan base has done an amazing job at mobilizing and working to get the show back.  They’ve spent both time and money, something like over $150,000.00 I’ve read.  Several full page ads were bought in magazines and newspapers, radio and even tv spots were produced to get the word out.  When the first groups mobilized I did help out a bit.  I wrote letters to way to many tv execs and hung out in chat rooms for the first few months.  After a while though I did pretty much give up hope.  I still stopped by the SafeFarscape/WatchFarscape website every once in a while but that was about it.

So remember to watch starting Sunday, October 17, 2004 at 9:00pm eastern.