30Sep2007 1350: Carnominvorous
I was always told that cats were carnivores, but if that were true then why the hell did I just catch Edmond whiker-deep in my bowl of spaghetti-Os?
I'm also cat-sitting for a friend while he's in Spain, so there will be two gray tabbies here for the next week. Edmond and Noob are still in the "I can't believe it's not a mirror" phase, slowly stalking each other across my home.
26Sep2007 2106: The Power of Time-Shifting
Everybody shhhh for just a few more minutes. I haven't seen Heroes yet, but we can discuss in...say...45 minutes? Great.
[Funky C - Joya] is heavy on the funky, also so-so on the joy. Funk must be an American invention, as there doesn't seem to be an equivalent word in Spanish. [Matt Nathanson - Car Crash] uses a variety of vehicular and natural disasters as a metaphor for falling in love (?) in an early-90s light rock number that is now being DELETED.
24Sep2007 2132: Update Update
I have not found this documented anywhere else on the Internets, and frankly I think any reasonable Google query is going to get bogged down in millions of pages of SQL n00b crap, so I bring you this vital communiqué regarding MSSQL Server 2005.
The setup is you have information in one table that you need to use for an update on another table. This table -- "Table" -- has one column -- "Column". Let's run through some permutations:
- Go through the trouble of constructing an actual table in the database, and
use that.
SELECT oopsColumn
FROM Table - Go through the trouble of constructing an actual table in the database, and
use that in a subquery.
UPDATE OtherTable
SET VitalColumn = Value
WHERE OtherColumn IN (SELECT oopsColumn FROM Table) - Use a table variable.
DECLARE @table TABLE (Column int)
SELECT oopsColumn
FROM @table - Use a table variable in a subquery.
DECLARE @table TABLE (Column int)
UPDATE OtherTable
SET VitalColumn = Value
WHERE OtherColumn IN (SELECT oopsColumn FROM @table) - Use a table variable in a subquery, and make sure it has stuff in it.
DECLARE @table TABLE (Column int)
INSERT INTO @table VALUES(0)
UPDATE OtherTable
SET VitalColumn = Value
WHERE OtherColumn IN (SELECT oopsColumn FROM @table)
Keep in mind that four of the above options will fail gracefully with an error message ("Table doesn't have oopsColumn, dummy") or do nothing. One will overwrite every single VitalColumn in OtherTable. Choose wisely.
Solution:
The dangerous one is (e). To execute this perfect storm of idiocy, you must (1) use a table variable (2) with at least one row (3) in a subquery (4) and select a column that doesn't exist in the table variable. If those four things are in place, you won't get NULL or an error message, you will match everything. And then you will waste two hours of your manager's time restoring a backup and halt reporting services for everybody all day. Hypothetically.
19Sep2007 2102: Tae Kwan Rilo
I hope you didn't come here for Free Music Day, because [Noble Society - The Swarm] is reggae and [Manu Chao - Rainin in Paradize] is in Spanish and still misspelled. I looked it up. Both those chumps have the misfortune to follow the Rilo Kiley concert on Friday night.
This was my 3.5th Rilo Kiley concert and they've all followed the same curious pattern with the opening acts. The first time it was M Ward and A Band of Four during this tour, and while they were a bit weird they did rock sufficiently. The second concert had Tilly and the Wall, a band my sister and I wanted to see almost as much as Rilo, followed by some wall-of-noise rock band that looked like they had the flu. The next time there was Vagtown 2000 before she succumbed to what I can only assume were soccer moms and changed her name. She was a tiny pixie of folksy goodness and completely overshadowed Mark Ward. I can't be sure he's the same M Ward from before but it seems likely...I guess he needed the other four.
This time it was Grand Ole Party (an even lower-fi Yeah Yeah Yeahs, if you can believe it) followed by...uh...oh yeah, Johnathan Rice. Mr. Rice had a slightly countrified folk sound and lyrics that absolutely didn't move me.
I guess what I'm saying is that yes, you should go to a Rilo Kiley concert nearby, but when the second band steps up you should go out for a sammich or something. Unless you're really really close to the stage. Then you should probably tough it out.
Rilo's newest album Under the Blacklight seems to complete their transformation into whatever the hell they were becoming in More Adventurous. It's yet more pop, and as they are now on Warner Bros' label they have access to the best recording facilities in the world for overprocessing their otherwise excellent music.
I really should go lie down or cool down or post-stretch or whatever the hell it is people do after exercise. Today was the second day of the Tae Kwan Do class that has been slowly consuming all my friends. There is quite a bit more sweat on me than I'm used to. Also I'm not used to being the worst person in the room at something but hey!
12Sep2007 1913: Slow Living
After all the excitement of last week, things have been pretty slow. I haven't uploaded the unboxing video as promised because a log of the lack of damage to a TV that's being RMA'd anyway seems kinda pointless. Despite my proddings there's been no updates on my thesis progress, TV progress, or if any of these spider bites have in fact given me superpowers.
Even the free music is pretty lackluster this week. [The May Fire - Marcha] is a bouncy lo-fi track that I guess is okay, but [Mainstay - Become Who You Are] is channeling some serious Creed/Nickelback inoffensive rock and [Rampage - Ambush] is exactly that. I expected the latter to be some sort of goth death rock, given the title and album cover that looked like an explosion in thumbnail mode. Instead I got some hilariously inept ghetto rap, one that actually has the gall to rhyme "way" with "ways". I couldn't listen to it all the way through, the way it was assaulting my ears. Way. DELETED.
When I switched back over to my main list I got [Jesse and Joy - Espacio Sideral], reminding me instantly that iTunes can do way better than this bunch.
Oh shit is that this Friday? Sweet. And then next week we get the next season of Avatar. Just gotta finish this week first.
05Sep2007 1813: Information Superhighway Robbery
There was a time not too long ago when I belived that only the bad-assest muscle cars could shoot flames out of their engine. It was recently pointed out to me by a recall notice that this is false. Man, cruise control has been a big portion of my increased MPG. Going into winter without it is going to suck.
I spent almost my entire long weekend playing the new Guild Wars expansion, Eye of the North. I purchased it online late Thursday night through the in-game store, which was super-smooth and activated the new stuff instantly. This was somewhat of a surprise; I tried to pre-order GW:EN in early August only to have my card rejected by the same store. Not a minute later I received a completely automated call from Wells Fargo Fraud Detection Bot. Once I proved to this soulless automaton that my last four purchases were in fact made by me, I was rewarded with the continued cancellation of my pre-order. Whatever.
What made this purchase different? Perhaps the fact that Fraud Detection Bot had knocked off work a day early and was already on his way to the lake cabin. "Beep beep", I imagine him saying as he maneuvers his chassis around a slowpoke in the right lane, "that SUV has a 'Save the Earth' bumper sticker! To confirm that there is a 30% chance of rain, please liËsten as I recite the last four Labor Day forecasts and respond 'Accurate' or 'Inaccurate'." As I spent most of the weekend planted in my office chair eating leftovers I had no occasion to use my credit card until yesterday. When it was declined. At the bar I've gone to every week for somewhere in the neighborhood of five years.
Once I finally got through to a Wells Fargo (human) rep the block was cleared up in about two seconds. No lasting damage to my credit, and I still have the game. It's just unfortunate that Wells Fargo FDBs consider NCsoft to be a den of thieves.
Hey, remember when I bought that TV? I was all psyched to go pick it up today and start playing around. UPS said it was scheduled for delivery on Tuesday, but I was going to be at work so I figured I'd take the slip and either schedule a better delivery time or go get it. So when I checked the tracking number from work yesterday I totally did not expect to see "Delivered".
I cut work a little earlier than normal for bar night and scurried home. I guess my doormat signed for the package because that's where I found it. Even worse, Newegg's shipping policy on bulk items like this is that I have to inspect the package for damage before I accept delivery...fantastic.
I'm glad this story is an anticlimax; the set seems free of shipping damage, given that I can't work out how "VGA input is stuck in power-suspend mode" could possibly be shipping damage. The other inputs work fine, and I'm doing more testing tonight. In lieu of actually accepting the delivery I recorded the unveiling on my digital camera...which only records in thirty-second increments. I'll get those compressed and uploaded as soon as I have time, and after I cut out the embarrassing bits. Like where I'm not quite sure how to pronounce "prurient".
[Magnate - Me Pones Mal] is yet another tune that puts a whitey like me in mind of mexican restaurants. I have nothing to recommend about this song, even if you do happen to understand Spanish. DELETED.
[Dee Dee Bridgewater - Red Earth (Massane Cisse)] began with an extended directionless jazz-piano freakout, but just as I was about to skip the rest and yell into my HTML editor it settled down and Dee Dee took over. It's a pretty decent blues song in the end. Someday I will obtain a blues song that is not about how the singer has grown up with the blues all their life, and how they are now leaving, and how they'll probably come back, but this is not that day.
[Kenna - Out of Control (State of Emotion)] sounds vaguely like Ok Go, but has traded guitar for synth and very clearly shouts some of the most vapid lyrics I've heard in months. DELETED.