Well, I got word the other day that "My Marianne" has drifted away. Anyone who has talked much with me about the song that those lyrics are from will know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, consider this a mindless entry.

Yes, I'm going to bed angry. Goodnight.

"Make something out of nothing."

When will you people all learn that I'm not God and that I can't pull the answer to every friggin' problem out of the air?

I am not capable of solving every problem. I don't care that I'm some "computer guru" or that I'm some "manager" or whatever. I am still human and I still have limits on my capabilities.

You know, the tune to that song, "Lips of an Angel", by the band, "Hinder", is actually kinda nice. But pay attention to the lyrics. Watch the video, if you have to. It's slime!

The guy is singing about this ex-girlfriend calling him, and he doesn't really give a crap that his wife/current-girlfriend is in the next room. He goes on to say that he wishes that his current girl was his ex-girlfriend. WTF?!

You know, I've had a hard time letting a lot of relationships go, even if they've not really been that serious. But even still, if I were in a relationship of any sort right now, I wouldn't be letting that kind of thing happen!

The kids today aren't really learning what they need to about respect, be it for themselves or others. It's all about lust, drugs, and money. Then you have songs like this that come out and do nothing but promote such activity.

And to think, these kids are going to be running our country, our world.

Some have suggested that it's because there's a full moon right now. Others have suggested that it's because of the change in weather. I suggest that it's because PEOPLE ARE EFFING STUPID!

Everything came to a head at the shop today and I got angrier than I have been in the last 5 years. I seriously thought I was going to have a stroke or something, as upset as I was. The guys at the shop were upset about things, the customers were all upset because out of their $34,000 per year income, they can't spend $30 on an oil change once every 3 months, and I just couldn't take it all.

I got to a point where I just didn't give a crap, so I made an excuse to leave the shop before I said something or did something that I'd really regret. I put the previous day's deposit together from the Wheatfield shop, and I walked to the drive-up at the bank. I had to get away from the crap, and that was the best way to do it, short of just clocking out and leaving.

I wasn't going to expose Mom to anything from what happened, but she asked for me to call Grandma and see how she was doing today. I told Mom that nobody wanted to talk to me at that moment, and she asked why. Naturally, I had to give her a general overview, so I said what was on my mind: "I'm about ready to walk out the door of that fu**ing place." Her eyes got really big, and she made the "Shhh..." motion with her finger. I don't use the "F-bomb" very often, but I've never used it in front of my parents. Yes, it's just a word, but thanks to culture it has a vile reputation.

On top of that stress, we had a really busy afternoon. I'm so worn out from all of it, and my scalp is tingling, probably from all of the blood that rushed to my head and is now on its way back to where it belongs.

I've put together a playlist for Winamp that should bring me back the other way, away from being angry. It's a list of really depressing songs, if not by lyric, by tune. So far it's not really working, though.

I'm just so ready for the weekend. I need to get away, and I'll probably just jump in the car and drive somewhere and back.

Monday, when I got back from my week of vacation, we had 32 cars at the shop. Tuesday was relatively quiet, as was Wednesday. Today was another busy day, closing out at 28 cars (I think).

This week started out rather warm, in the mid 80's, then it cooled off Wednesday. This has caused a lot of allergy flare-ups around here, and I think mine are beginning today. My sinuses feel like they're full of water, and my eyes have been burning all day.

I hope tomorrow isn't crazy busy, but at the same time I hope it's not as quiet as it was Tuesday and Wednesday.

I feel really bad, having told my dad what I just told him: "Well, your hard drive is bad and I can't access your files that you saved."

The drive was a Maxtor, factory default in an eMachines T1440. It almost makes me cry, having seen the look on his face when I told him that everything he saved on that drive was gone.

I think I'm going to consult my lawyer to see if it's plausible for a lawsuit against the idiots filing lawsuits against video game publishers.

The people that are filing these lawsuits are doing so because they were too concerned with keeping their spotless SUV on the highway, getting to Starbucks before they close, and making sure their cellular telephone is functioning properly, to be aware that their child, a minor, might be puchasing a violent video game without their (the parent) consent. As a result, their child learned these new things from the violent video games, and because the parent didn't teach the kid otherwise, or even pay attention to what they were buying and playing to know that such an instruction would be necessary, and put those new things into practice.

The irresponsible parents did this back in the late 90's with the short-lived show on MTV, "Bevis and Butthead". Some kid was watching the show, his parents were unaware of what the kid was watching, and he set his house on fire. When police and fire officials asked the kid why he did it, he said that it was something he saw on "Bevis and Butthead", so he thought he'd try it. Mommy and Daddy were outraged that such a violent thing would be on TV in their house, so they cried and complained about it to the producers, and the show basically dwindled to nothing shortly thereafter.

Because some 11 year old kid sees Tommy Vercetti running through the streets of Liberty City, stealing cars, shooting people, hooking up with prostitutes then killing them and stealing all their money, and because the kid's mom never pays attention to what's in that little plastic box from Wal-Mart, the kid goes out on the street with the .38-caliber handgun he finds buried in his dad's dresser drawer and kills whoever he sees walking down the street. Who's to blame here, Rockstar (the publisher) for creating such a violent game, or Mommy and Daddy for allowing their son to play the game, and for leaving a loaded firearm in an insecure location where the little kid can find it?

Video games are rated for a reason. If your kid hands you a video game that he wants, look at the rating. If you see anything about violence, take the time to research the game, or to sit down with the kid while he's playing and explain to him that the violence is only okay in the game, nowhere else. If you don't, and the kid turns into a murderer, don't you dare blame the video game for his outcome.

Okay, so maybe I can still hack up some of the new features...

One of the features SkuddBlog2 was going to incorporate is individual XML feeds, intended for use on sites other than this. This would allow for me to keep other sites updated and fresh, all from a single location.

I've added a couple categories for a couple of my sites, and you'll see the entries on this site as well, along with a link to the target site.

Please be aware that I have to implement the aggregation of the feeds yet on these other sites, so you may not see the news there yet.

I just took a closer look at the logs and template source for blog.skudd.com, and I found that /v2/ was the bulky portion of the site.

SkuddBlog v2 was one of the unsuccessful attempts at reworking the site. For some reason, about 1/3 of the traffic has been going there, while there's been no content to speak of.

So, what I've done is I've cleaned up the directory structure. If anyone has been keeping an eye on v2 at all, I apologize for removing it.

Additionally, all HTTP 404 errors will be redirected to http://blog.skudd.com/.

I'm really burning this thing up...

Anyhow, I'm half asleep watching this TV show, "It Takes a Theif" on the Discovery Channel. Most, if not all, of the problems they're finding in these houses are common things. Their solutions are far too costly for the average homeowner to afford.

Example: A couple years ago, I got a hermetically sealed collection of the first few "state" quarters that were released the years prior. I have mine just sitting on a shelf in my closet, as did the guy on this show.

When the crooks broke in, they took those coins. Afterwards, the guy said they were worth a lot of money. The solution they offered the guy was a 400lbs., 2-hour fireproof safe. Safes aren't cheap, and while the collection may have been worth a lot, who's to say that the guy who collected them actually spent the money to buy them?

They went further into it, adding high-tech crap to the car and the house. The thing about it is the problems they were attempting to solve are very very common problems in nearly every house in the world. But think about it: Does every house in the world have the funds sufficient to solve these problems in the same way? NO!

I just hate it when pop culture offers solutions like this to the everyday problems of the world, assuming that even rural America can afford it.

News flash: Not everyone lives in urban, middle-class California.

Maybe a vacation isn't really a good idea. I tend to get worked up over stupid crap like this when I'm not working.

Remember back this spring when I said I was going to take my vacation to finish a project? Remember the surprise I said it would be? Well guess what: Surprise over.

I was going to get the new version of SkuddBlog done and deployed here. I thought it would be possible, and that I'd be able to come up with a bandwidth-friendly template. How wrong I was.

I just got the authentication portion done, and was in need of the template to actually work with for testing and further development. So, I started with the template.

Just when I got everything (nearly) done and working well (in Firefox, mind you), I decided to give it a test in IE. I told myself, "$5 says it won't render." I owe myself $5.

In Firefox In Internet Explorer

Clearly, it has to do with the way IE renders borders, padding, and margin. It's a very common headache among the web design community, and the reason most grown men are bald.

I think I'm going to give up on this project and go for a drive. Screw this crap.

I just noticed that my shirt is on backwards.

I know, I know.. Ads suck. But, I have an idea:

I am getting really close to the 1800 mark for unique visitors this month. As of right this instant, I've had 1779 unique visitors with over 1.1GB of bandwidth consumed!

Bandwidth is expensive.

I am very strongly considering dropping a Google AdSense ad just below the first post on the front page, and above the comments on the single post page. The ads I have in place now are all non-revenue generating. The ads I am considering dropping in the layout will generate revenue, which will be split something like 80%/20% with Jason, the owner of this server.

If and when I do this, I encourage everyone to click through only if something piques your interest. Otherwise, I would like to ask that you not abuse the system, as it will help to drive the payout cost down, which is not what we want.

It took almost the entire day, but it's all pretty much done.

What's left?

• All account holders need to get in touch with me, if they've not yet done so, so that I can create a temporary password on their accounts.
• Additional hosts need to be created in the DNS zone, but that is very low priority.
• DNS reverse-lookup zone needs to be created (maybe).
• NFS exports need to be created for additional hosts on the LAN.
• Further tweaking and securing needs to take place.

If anyone has any issues with their accounts or sites, I need to know. My contact info will be displayed in the MOTD after you log in via SSH.

I appreciate everyone's understanding as I've done this, and I thank everyone who helped out for, well, helping out. This has been the smoothest migration the 'beest has experienced, EVER!