James Paige

Current mood: Awe Inspired

I am blogging this on my laptop while looking at the spectacular view of Tanzania from the summit of Uhuru, the highest of the seven peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro, and in fact, the highest point in all Africa. No– I am not an experienced mountain climber. The Uhuru summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro is actually a rather easy climb (in comparison to other mountains anyway) and can be accomplished by any healthy adult with no special climbing training, provided that one at least takes a little time to acclimate oneself to the altitude. The slightly lower Mawensi peak (which I can see from here) is a considerably more difficult climb. if I was twice as athletic, and had twice as much time here, i would attempt it, but I have to be back to work by Monday morning so I’m not going to.

This place is just awesome. It is almost sunset here, and I can see the whole western sky from the wraparound picture window of the Uhura Peak Starbucks. The dry season hasn’t really set in, so the plains are really alive looking, and the greens against the reds and yellows of the sunset is really spectacular. This Starbucks is way better than the run-of-the-mill starbucks you find most places (which is appropriate, for such a spectacular setting). They have live music here all evening. Earlier I was listening to some local Taarab music, which was really cool and unique, and currently there is a Eagles cover band playing. I have never heard Hotel California in Swahili before! This Starbucks also specializes in a few uniquely African blends of Coffee which they don’t serve in the States, and although I normally never touch coffee, I went ahead and settled on a Kenyan blend which I am really enjoying.

The Wi-fi access here is free, and pretty fast, not just here inside the coffee shop, but over the whole peak, and I was actually able to e-mail some pictures to my family while sitting out on the rocks this morning. Unfortunately my T-Mobile Cell Phone is at only one “bar”, and it says “Roaming” on the screen, even though the customer support rep assured me that there were no international roaming charges on my plan. I’m trying to use it as little as possible, but I did have to spend almost an hour this morning walking a co-worker in California through a printer configuration change (Stupid CUPS! why does it have to stop the queue on a USB disconnect with no retry or anything?) So I really hope I don’t get home to find a ridiculously huge bill. Anyway, I digress. This place is beautiful, and I have to get a good night’s sleep for a long day of Hang Gliding

I love y’all, be back Sunday night!

Current mood: Thoughtful

Serpentes Fortis, commonly known as the Luck Dragon, is an endangered Sentient Reptile, once found scattered throughout south-east Asia. Long extinct in the wild, the only Luck Dragons still alive are a few small populations kept in captivity. Although intelligent, thoughtful, and empathetic creatures, they are most prized for their natural ability to influence random events. In Las Vegas Nevada, in the United States, protests to have the remaining Luck Dragons released from the Casinos that own them, have gone largely ignored for the past decade, but recent pressure from animal rights activists, together with offers by the San Diego Wild Animal Park to set up a breeding program have renewed interest in the eventual re-introduction of the Luck Dragon into its natural habitat.Laboratory Testing
The use of captive Luck Dragons by major gambling establishments has been mildly controversial since the practice began in the early 1940’s, but last week a new controversy broke into the news, which has provoked public outcry that may be the catalyst that finally brings about a change in the treatment and status of Luck Dragons. On May 14 2005, Swiss journalists published shocking photographs and videos documenting the use of Luck Dragons to influence quantum probability distributions in laboratory experiments at CERN. The videos (which are too graphic to reproduce here) show dragons being subjected to a modified form of the Schrodinger’s Cat experiment, which demonstrates the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. In this experiment, a Luck Dragon, instead of a cat is placed into a poison-gas-chamber apparatus which is triggered by the decay of a radioactive isotope. In Shrodinger’s classical version of the experiment, the cat both dies, and does not die, and exists in a quantum superposition of simultaneous deadness and aliveness until the box is opened, and an observer measures whether or not the animal died. When the experiment is performed on a Luck Dragon, the isotope never decays in such a way as to trigger the release of the poison gas, and the dragon always remains completely alive in spite of the absence of an observer’s measurement, this violates quantum indeterminacy, and doubles both the mass and energy present in the molecules in dragon’s body, which in turn simultaneously violates the law of conservation of energy, and causes the dragon’s body to collapse into a microsingularity, which ironically, always kills the dragon.A spokesman for CERN was quoted as saying;

Really, I don’t see what the problem people are having is. The destruction of these dragons is furthering our understanding of quantum physics, and allowing us to explore areas of theory that were previously untestable. The use of Serpentes Fortis will lead to a whole new and exciting field of science, which we are calling “Serpentometrics”, which will allow us to peer into quantum physical processes previously only explorable in mathematical theory

Animal rights protesters have been holding a candle-light vigil outside CERN’s main European offices since Friday night.

Current mood: Wise

1. In the first year of the third millinia in the Year of Our Lord, Anno Domino two-thousand-and-one, the Angel of Server Naming Schemes appeared to the Prophet James in a dream and spake to him concerning the naming of servers and workstations, giving unto him the guidance by which servers and workstations would be named in the Kingdom of The Network. And he spake thusly forbidding first the Giving Of Bad Names;
2. Thou shalt in no wise name thy computers for the person who shall use them, for no mortal man may know the future, and the comings and goings of employees, and the changing of their desks and the shifting of their purposes. The computer which upon the morning has been apportioned to Bob in Marketing, when the sun sets shall be used by Frank from Legal. He who names a computer for a person implies a false similitude between human and computer, and makes a mockery of the name of both.
3. Thou shalt in no wise name thy computers for the function they perform, for the very nature of a computer is versatility. Can not the computer designated for e-mail also printeth labels? Can not the server unto which is apportioned the serving of webpages serveth also network applications? He who names a computer for an action implies that the purpose of the computer cannot be changed. This is falsehood.
4. Thou shalt in no wise name thy computers for the location in which they abide, for a network taketh away great distance, and the location of a system matters not. He who names a system for its location denies the Transparency of the Network
5. Thou shalt in no wise name thy computers using numbers for this is dull in the sight of Heaven, and leadeth down the path of ambiguous names. He who nameth with numbers shall be cursed so that he shall have to remember what each of them means. This is no better than the rote memorization of IP addresses, as the heathens do.
6. And the Prophet James trembled in fear, for he had done all of these things, having already broken every one of these Commandments long before the Angel had spoken them, and he cried out in a loud voice, saying; Woe unto me! How then am I to be saved?

The Apocryphal Writings of James – Chapter 4 verses 18 thru 23

I’m sorry I haven’t blogged in so long. I was bitten by a lemur. (Actually, to be perfectly correct, it was an Aye-aye, which is a species of small extra-ugly Lemur) Anyway, I spent the last week sick in bed, until last night, the lemur venom had finally worked its way through my system, and at the stroke of midnight, I became a were-lemur. I now spend most of my time gnawing on tree branches, or probing for grubs with my elongated middle finger. Mmm, grubs. Can’t get enough of those grubs! I don’t understand why lemur cuisine has not caught on in California. I think a big plate of those healthy sweet green grubs would sell really well around here, especially if you labeled them low carb, which would be true. Grubs are high in protein, but don’t have a lot of carbs. I think the whole anti-carb diet fad thing is really silly, but hey, whatever helps me sell grubs is okay by me.

Speaking of diet fads, anybody care to bet on which will be the next one? Ever since I was like five years old, I remember hearing about various diet fads. The first one I remember was the sugar-is-evil fad, which basically said that if you ever eat one whole tablespoon of sugar in a single sitting, you will go directly to hell. And also there was the ever-popular meat-is-evil fad, and then the fat-is-evil fad, which was eventually replaced by the oops-sorry-we-were-wrong-only-SATURATED-fat-is-evil fad, and then the cholesterol-is-evil fad, and then the bad-cholesterol-is-bad-but-good-cholesterol-is-good fad, and the anything-that-isn’t-protein-is-evil fad, which quickly evolved into the carbohydrates-are-evil fad. There were others, but I think those were the main ones. Also, I do remember that every so often I would see a news bit on the television where some heretic would say “Hey, eating whatever the heck you want in moderation along with regular exercise is all you need”, and everybody would nod sagaciously and agree that it was common sense, and then everyone would instantaneously forget about it, and go back to obsessing over the latest fad. Anyway, I sense that the carb fad is losing it’s steam, so I am wondering what is going to be next. My guess is moisture. I think that the next fad will be the dehydration diet, which states as undisputable clinical fact that all dietary ill-health, including obesity, fatness, pudgyness, overweightness, and I-could-stand-to-lose-five-poundsness are all caused by water. After all, the human body is over 80 percent water by volume, and as anyone can see, that is way too much! The object of the dehydration diet is to consume as little moisture as possible, without actually killing yourself. Some examples of fine dehydro cuisine include; raw flour, uncooked rice, powdered beef jerky, minced bay leaves, and orange-peel shavings. A dehydro feast might consist of all of those ingredients, mixed together, sifted, freeze-dried, vacuum-packed, and served cold (hot food can cause mousture to condense from the air, and is therefore unacceptable.) I predict that dehydro will be all the rage in California by the middle of 2006.

In the mean time, I am going to go figure out how to make grub-jerky.

Current mood: Buzzy

Huitzil is the Nahuatl name for Hummingbird. It is a really cool name. The Aztecs were one of the civilizations who spoke Nahuatl, and they needed a cool name of hummingbirds. Why? Because they invented caffinated hot beverages. “What now?” you ask; Think about it. It makes sense.

If it doesn’t make sense, drink a large (grande) cappuchino-triple-mochachino and then think about it some more.

Current mood: Piratey

Current mood: Alive

While I was watching Ryda play Baldur’s Gate II last night, it occured to me how incredibly useful it would be to have the powers of a necromancer in real life.

When I get to work in the morning, I would summon a skelleton, and say; Skully! Read and file my e-mail! And save anything important for me., and then skully would say yessss master.

Then I would be working on a programming project, and somebody would come to me with a spreadsheet project, and I would be all Skully! Do this boring spreadsheet for me!, and Skully would say Yessss master. Being an unholy damned creature of the netherworld, I have a natural proficiency with Microsoft Excel, and then I would say; But Skully, this is OpenOffice.org running on Debian GNU/Linux, and Skully would go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh!!! and he would catch fire and crumble into ash, and then I would be bummed, because I would have to use up half my mana summoning a new Skully, and then I wouldn’t have enough mana left over at lunch time to cast Fire 3 to heat up my Cup-O-Noodles, and I would have to walk all the way down to the break room to use the stupid microwave.

Current mood: Floatey

Last night, the spirit of Salvador Dali appeared to me in a dream, in which he implored me to do more to support the consumer economy.

Dali: James! I come with a prophesy of Doooooom!

James: What!? Huh? What is happening to me? Where did you come from? Am I dreaming?

Dali: Not a deam, James. This is a vision! I come to you with a dire warning!

James: What must I do to save myself, oh Salvador Dali?

Dali: You need to drink more Sprite™! Spriiiiiiite™!

James: What?

Dali: You have been drinking water! I have been watching you from the spirit world, and all you drink is water!

James: That’s not true! I drank a glass of Strawberry/White-Cranberry last night. That isn’t water!

Dali: Your roommate purchased that! it doesn’t count.

James: So what is the big deal? What is wrong with water?

Dali: When you buy Sprite™, you support the Coca-Cola™ corporation, and stimulate the economy. Only by purchasing expensive sugary artifical beverage-flavoured drinks can we ensure the financial stability of the American economy for future generations!

James: Um… I don’t think th–

Dali: Think of the children!

James: But, I–

Dali: Think of the children!! (shakes fist)

James: But I drink bottled water! I pay for it. Doesn’t that stimulate the economy too?

(Salvador Dali emits a piercing shriek, and his head spins around on his neck)

Dali: Heretic! I saw you! I watch you! I have seen what you do!

James: No! That’s impossible! You can’t know that!

Dali: Yes, I have seen it! You purchased one bottle of Dasani™ purified water back in 2002, and you have been re-filling it from the tap ever since!

James: (screams) It’s true! I’m sorry, Salvador Dali! Have mercy on me!

And then I woke up in a cold sweat.

Current mood: Dusty

This weekend I will be unable to post any blog entries, because i am leaving on vacation to go to Dino-Bungee National Monument, where I will bask in patriotic awe of the awe-inspiringly awesome megasculptural monolith that is Mount Rushmore, after which I shall bungee-jump from Lincoln‘s nose. Originally I was planning on jumping from Washington‘s nose, but then I read in the brocure that the decent takes you just three and a half feet from his strong jutting chin, so you must jump with absolute precision to avoid simultaneously killing yourself and defacing a national treasure. They reccomend that only for advanced bungee jumpers, and since this is my first time, I think I will stick with good ‘ol Abe.

After that, I will tour the rest of the National Park, and see the National Park Service‘s bone-chilling re-creation of a bygone age millions of years ago, when the virgin continent of North America was terrorized by large plaster replicas of dinosaurs.

Current mood: Less sick than I thought I would be

I saw a dead lizard on the ground in the parking area this morning. It was laying in a circle position with it’s tail near its mouth, as if in death, symbolizing the cyclic nature of life. I think it was an omen. If it starts raining fish today, I am going home sick.