Quakey

Ha ha

quakey — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 13:25:31 GMT

“Dark and tortured” and “Superman” never belong in the same sentence, unless that sentence is “Superman met his dark and tortured friend Batman for coffee.”

http://io9.com/the-most-important-scenes-from-man-of-steel-as-i-remem-516405346

That is all.

quakey — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 03:16:33 GMT

I read ANOTHER book.

quakey — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 03:09:59 GMT

Storm Front by Jim Butcher, AKA the first Dresden book. It's not what I would call a classic novel, but undeniably fun, especially when our protagonist decided to blow some shit up in a magical fashion, and with a whole lot of plot threads that all come together by the end. I could have dealt without the "harem"aspect, but I'll hope the following books will have a lower number of beautiful women all flirting with the hero. Sheesh.

Also, I read this as an eBook, which I don't usually do. The thing I don't like about electronic formats is not being able to feel how close I am to the end or how much I've read in a sitting.

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.

quakey — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 05:58:15 GMT

Because I needed something silly to take my mind off things before bed. And because what can be better than a Batman vs. Superman parody involving a Broadway tune?

Good night.

Silly children.

quakey — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 05:37:37 GMT

Give them a dishwasher box, cut two holes in it for a "window" and a "door," and sit back and watch them go INSANE crawling in and out of it.

Too Many Things

quakey — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 07:08:56 GMT

I stumbled upon The 100 Thing Challenge today. The irony of someone selling a book about how we all need less stuff is huge. Therefore I will borrow it from the library.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

quakey — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:49:26 GMT

“We need a larger firewall,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in Berlin yesterday. “Without it, countries like Italy and Spain, that are fundamentally able to repay their debts, could potentially be forced into a solvency crisis by abnormal financing costs.”

*snort* YA THINK?

Translation: We know that under normal conditions, certain European countries would be screwed. Confidence in their ability to repay would deteriorate and the interest rates on their debt would spike. Instead, we hope to break every historical trend. By having Europe act as a single fiscal entity and by loudly, publicly, and frequently stating that we will bail out any part of the system that gets into trouble, we hope to keep interest rates low. Otherwise we're f***ed.

(I love that "abnormal financing costs," except it sound pretty normal to me: have bad credit and get charged higher rates to borrow.)

That is all.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

that's gotta suck D:

quakey — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:46:24 GMT

Er. I know I suck at posting and responding to entries and such. But... Help!!

A good friend just got word that her Mom (who is in a nursing home with self-induced liver failure and who is a horrible, useless, mean human being as far as I can tell... but yet is still my friend's mom, and mom-ness means a lot) isn't expected to live through the weekend.

What the heck do I say/do in this situation?? "I'm sorry, I'd give you a hug if I were there," just seems so inadequate. "Good riddance!" would obviously get me kicked in the teeth. She's rather broken up about it, resigned yet also finally coming face-to-face with her mom's mortality... and I just want to avoid putting my foot in my mouth and to be comforting.

I just killed a tree :P

quakey — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:19:30 GMT

I just printed about 100 pages of the 884 pages of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act conference report. (The 1500 page total you hear frequently quoted is for the official congressional form in which bills are printed. It has HUGE margins, double-spacing, and big font. Imagine something that your grandpa with the bad eyesight and shaky handwriting could read and make notes on. :P If you shrank the margins and made it look like something modern, I bet it would only be 500 pages. ;P)

To my surprise, there's are only six obvious miscellaneous "extras" stuck into it. And since they're for things like "Reporting requirements regarding coal or other mine safety" I believe it's someone trying to get their pet "emergency" law on the books, not get a pile of pork for their home district. Most of the pork is in the bill itself in the creation of umpteen new duties and boards. ;PPPPP

Full conference board report: http://financialservices.house.gov/Key_Issues/Financial_Regulatory_Reform/conference_report_FINAL.pdf
General info page on the bill: http://financialservices.house.gov/Key_Issues/Financial_Regulatory_Reform/Financial_Regulatory_Reform062910.html

I may think my job is incredibly stupid, but I do enjoy getting a chance to keep my finger on current events like this.

I MUST BLOG ABOUT THIS BEFORE THEY TURN OFF THE INTERNET!!!11!

quakey — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 04:30:03 GMT

Perhaps you have heard conservative conspiracy nuts talking about this bill.

Internet Kill Switch One More Step Toward Communism In the USA

I may not agree with the panic, but I have to generally agree with the antipathy. Here's the full bill text for those interested: http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c111TNbF2a:e0:. It is possibly the STUPIDEST thing I have EVER SEEN proposed in the US Congress. I intensely hope that Senator Lieberman's credibility goes down the drain after this one.

Essentially ... they're trying to make an Office of the Internet. To do stuff. Which stuff is whatever they want. And which will probably cost lots of money. It's not exactly a "killswitch" bill (see Title II section 249 for the response to emergencies section). But it is a GIANT government agency with broad, vague authority that we don't need.

Anyway, this is stupid. Pass it on. </rant>

quakey — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:42:18 GMT

Me, for many years past: "Can we please add this cool feature to our core product? I know it will take resources, but our core product is what brings cash in the door. Pleeeeease?"

Senior Management, for many years past: "Silly frosh! Of course not! We need to build other products! (Even though the last 3 or 4 were utter flops...) More products!"

Competitor: "HAI THERE. WE'RE GOIN 2 UNDERCUT U ON PRICE BIATCHES!"

Senior Management: "Um... Can we beef up our main product? We need it to be cooler to justify the price."

Me: *infinite headdesk*

So. Poll time, LJ. What sort of career change should I consider?

View Poll: What should I be when I grow up?

Edit: I should have listed one more option, which is to interview for a PM position at Microsoft.

Daddy does NOT approve

quakey — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:44:18 GMT

Seriously Kubo? WTF was that? Hundreds of chapters of anticipation and then Ichigo is just like, "Oh, it's cool, you must have had your reasons. My mind is totally not blown by this."

Pffffffft.

Although, Isshin is apparently the badass Shinigami to top all badass Shinigami if he's willing to take on Aizen. XD

I'm fed up and I'm not going to take it anymore

quakey — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:04:52 GMT

Warning, political rant follows.

Since I style myself neither Republican nor Democrat, just a social liberal and a fiscal conservative with a hefty dose of libertarian thrown in for kicks, I'm sure I'll manage to offend everyone at least once. Even so, here goes nothin'...

I am sick of being penalized for doing things right. There is something (okay, many things) wrong with this country at the moment, but one of them is that people who screw up get bailed out and those who try to be self sufficient end up footing the bill.

Point one: I am pissed off that this government is spending itself into the equivalent of the subprime debt bubble or the Greek debt crisis, ballooning the federal debt, and no one can stop them. This is either going to end in either massive deflation or inflation, and I'm going to bet inflation because I doubt our government or our country has the balls to cut spending, programs, debt, and watch the US economy go into a protracted recession because of it. Purposeful inflation to effectively shrink the debt seems much more likely, even if it pisses off the rest of the world like you wouldn't believe. Anyway, point being, no matter whether we get inflation or deflation or a persistent stagnation like in Japan, it is going to happen eventually and it is going to hurt my finances and my retirement account. And the kicker is, I do not support any of this deficit spending, but I'm going to get hurt by it. *fumes*

Point two: the Obama administration announced yet another mortgage modification plan, aimed at those who are underwater on their mortgages. Damn it, when do I get some help? I was responsible, took out no more mortgage than I could afford, put my 20% down, realized prices were inflated but had no choice about the timing to buy, lost equity as a result (but can still pay the mortgage) ... and I get to pay for other people's screw ups for buying straight into a speculative bubble expecting their property value to rise asymptoticly? #@$&!

Point three: did you hear that the CBO announced that the Social Security trust fund is expected to go negative for the first time ever this year? Previous estimates of when that would occur were around 2016. This is yet another example where I'm paying money into a system where I never expect to receive any benefit, but my tax dollars are being directed to people who either 1) don't need the help or 2) do need the help because they didn't save for their own retirement the way I did.

Point four: health insurance. Listen peeps, the problem is not health insurance or lack thereof. The problem is the cost of health care, and this health insurance reform package is not going to do much to stop increases in cost. What does this health care package do for me? Probably increases the overall cost of health care, forces me to use insurance (which I hate), and reduces the quality of my health care and/or increases my cost. You know those "Cadillac" plans? The Boy has one of those through his employer (a large software firm that shall remain nameless). Never mind that he more than earns the benefits. So again, my taxes are going to go up and/or my benefits are going to go down because we have worked ourselves to a position where we are doing well for ourselves.

The argument for all of these programs is that of social welfare: we need to help out our neighbors in order to keep our entire society functioning. Yes, to a point. Each individual is responsible for paying their taxes to keep the entirety of society functioning. But this is getting to the point of flat-out wealth transfer, and I resent it!

As the Declaration of Independence says, "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Too many people seem to think that reads as a guarantee of "life, liberty, and ~~the pursuit of~~ happiness." A good deal should not be guaranteed. If someone screws up, I have a little sympathy and I'll give them a little help (via my tax dollars), but my kindness only goes so far. At some point each of us has to be responsible for our own destiny, and that means paying for it yourself.

I actually thought to myself, "Maybe it would be cheaper if I just dropped out of the work force, reduced our tax bracket, and stayed home. ;P" And that's a very unusual place for my brain to have gone.

</rant>

Shari’ah

quakey — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:46:49 GMT

I found this weirdly interesting.

Shari’ah-Compliant Master Agreement Introduced for Hedging Islamic Finance Transactions

"... ISDA (the International Swaps and Derivatives Association) and IIFM (International Islamic Financial Market) jointly issued the first Shari'ah-compliant master agreement for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives. Styled the "ISDA / IIFM Ta'Hawwut Master Agreement" (ta'hawwut signifies "hedging" in Arabic), the new template master agreement (the "Ta'Hawwut Agreement") provides a framework for the expansion of derivatives activity in the Middle East, South Asia and many regions throughout the world where hedging is not currently standard practice due to ethical concerns."

Dude. If you have ethical concerns, then don't hedge.

*facepalms at the entire global financial system*

icons: Darker Than Black, Saiyuki

quakey — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:59:33 GMT

[14] Darker Than Black
[6] Saiyuki

Recently I've been experimenting with other, dirtier styles. But you know what? I don't like them. I'm going to go back to what I like. w00t! XD

Teasers:

RULES
Please give credit on any icons you take. And comments are love and make me happy.

DARKER THAN BLACK

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

13	14

SAIYUKI

15	16	17	18

19	20

Credits
Season 2 Darker Than Black screen caps: mezzotintic.
Lyrics in the Saiyuki icons are by Flogging Molly. Blame the Saiyuki icontest community.
I usually get my fonts from dafont and Fontica.

quakey — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:54:15 GMT

Just learned that a sweet little old lady who I knew from my childhood passed away. This actually makes me tear up quite a bit; Flossie was an awesome person, always enthusiastic, caring, cheerful, and more than a bit mischevious. Basically she was a tiny little spitfire. I liked her better than most of my own relatives.

Flora (AKA Flossie) Renee Bolster (1917-2009)

Flora Renee Bolster passed away on October 31, 2009, three days before her 93rd birthday. A resident of Colusa, California for more than 40 years, Flossie was an energetic civic leader and community volunteer who inspired those she led and was beloved by those that knew her. Flossie was always ready, willing and able to help anyone in any way that she could. When she entered a room her presence was felt. Her smile would bring light and warmth and her laugh was infectious. Her generosity, caring spirit and joy of life touched everyone who came in contact with her. Flossie's first foray in volunteer efforts was at the local junior high school. She loved children very much and her work at the schools brought her great joy and appreciation for the local youth. Though active with numerous local organizations, Flossie was particularly devoted to the Friends of the Library, Colusa County Well Baby Program, The Book Worm, and the Colusa County Health Department. She was a charter member of the Pink Ladies Telecare Program and was also the Hostess with the Mostess at the Annual Yuletide Christmas Dinner held at the Senior Nutrition Center. Flossie was awarded the Colusa Lions Club "Citizen of the Year Award", being recognized as a person of the community who has gone the extra mile and made extraordinary effort in helping those in need.

Flossie will be greatly missed by all whom she has touched, especially the Rinzler and Manville children. She is survived by her only son, Robert Bolster and his wife Deborah of San Antonio, TX, her devoted caregiver, loving friend, and neighbor, Amy Manville, and her beloved dog Kalbi. Flossie was preceded in death by her husband, Ed Bolster.

A memorial service in celebration of Flossie's life will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, November 5, 2009 at McNary-Moore Chapel.

Donations can be made in her memory to Colusa County Friends of the Library or Colusa Regional Medical Center.

*blows nose* Ah well, 93 years, that's a pretty good run.

fish and foo

quakey — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:46:02 GMT

I'm taking a break at work from the Project of Doom and thought I'd do an update.

(I feel so very screwed where the Project of Doom is concerned. I really want to blame other people for this feeling, but I have to admit that a lot of it is due to my own actions. Still, I'm feeling really ticked off at the people who, back in June, said, "Oh, let's delay working on this for a couple months, I'm sure HUD will rescind the rule before the end of the year." Yeah right. Fuck.)

Yesterday I cleaned my aquarium (30 gallons) after leaving it for way too long. I need some new fish to throw in it, but I can't decide what they should be. I can't keep tetras; the damn things are always dying on me. Same for tiger barbs ... I've killed off all but one of the last batch I bought. (Technically the stupid things kill each other. Stupid schooling fish. If there are few enough of them that they can figure out which is the weakest, all the others gang up on it. When the weakest dies, they find the next weakest and repeat the process until only one is left. Idiots.) I think I want something like a loach. :P Something active, friendly, and with personality.

Edit: And I can't get a betta fish either ... they are far too fond of jumping out of the aquarium and drying themselves out on the carpet. :P I think I have horrible luck with aquarium fish.

Anyone got a suggestion for a good, hardy, entertaining, freshwater, tropical aquarium fish?

Okay, back to work. *sob*

phone jerky

quakey — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:39:49 GMT

The phone is alive! ALIVE!!

*cough*

All it took was letting it dry enough to get all the water out. Which merely involved putting it inside a food dehydrator set to about 100 degrees F in a small, closed room with a dehumidifier running in the same room for about 4 days.

So. If you ever put your cell phone through the wash, go out and buy a dehumidifier and a food dehydrator. Or just buy a new phone. (I already owned both these anti-water devices, so it was a better idea to dry the phone than buy a new one.)

I CAN CALL PEOPLE AGAIN. *snuggles phone*

Ahoy, matey! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

quakey — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 06:40:39 GMT

Aaaaarrrrrrrrrrr, celebrate and raise a pint of grog for me, mates! 'Tis me favorite holiday after Halloween. The Boy, landlubber that he be, disagrees. Something about "stupidest holiday in existance OMG quit saying 'arrrrr' or I'm going to go insane."

Aye, he shall be walking the plank if he continues with this crazy talk.

econ geekery post

quakey — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:33:44 GMT

At some point in the near future I want to make a brief Kumoricon post. In the meantime, here are some recent articles and happenings which I think are worth a read.

As you may — or may not — have heard, the Treasury made a report and/or proposal on how to 'fix' the financial system. Okay, not the entire financial system, but at least how to 'fix' some of the issues of bank stability. I'm going to borrow from a trade publication to summarize the core principles, with my own thoughts thrown in for fun.

Capital requirements should be designed to protect the stability of the financial system, not just the solvency of individual banking firms. This one's clear enough, and I definitely support it.

Capital requirements for all banking firms should be increased, and capital requirements for financial firms that could pose a threat to overall financial stability (i.e., Tier 1 financial holding companies) should be higher than those for other banking firms. AKA, banks must keep more money on hand, especially if they're bigger "too big to fail" institutions.

The regulatory capital framework should place greater emphasis on higher quality forms of capital (e.g., voting common equity). This one is interesting. The full discussion points out that the people making decisions at these big banks should be holding the classes of stock that are subject to risk, just like the rest of the economy. No protecting top brass from their own bad decisions! I like it!

Risk-based capital requirements should be a function of the relative risk, including systemic risk, of a banking firm's exposures, and risk-based capital rules should better reflect a banking firm's current financial condition. The full document goes on to say that if the risk models we had in place didn't notice the fact that these institutions were about to fail, that means there's something very wrong with the model.

The procyclicality of the regulatory capital and accounting regimes should be reduced and consideration should be given to introducing countercyclical elements into the regulatory capital regime. Procyclical: in the context of government regulation, it refers economic policies that could magnify economic or financial fluctuations. An economic policy that is believed to decrease fluctuations is called countercyclical.

Banking firms should be subject to a simple, non-risk-based leverage constraint. Simplify the rules for how much money banks must keep on hand. Destroy loopholes.

Banking firms should be subject to a conservative, explicit liquidity standard independent from the regulatory capital regime. Similar to the previous one.

Stricter capital and liquidity requirements for the banking system should not be allowed to result in the re-emergence of an under-regulated non-bank financial sector that poses a threat to financial stability. At this point the economics-babble has reduced my brain to mush. I can't translate that aside from, let's keep this from happening again.

Principles for Reforming the U.S. and International Regulatory Capital Framework for Banking Firms

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?

throws up hands in exasperation

quakey — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:13:52 GMT

Does no one on the 'net have a spaghetti sauce recipe that uses fresh tomatoes? I swear, they all start by calling for either canned tomatoes or tomato sauce or both. I have a big box of fresh tomatoes from the 'rents and I intend to cook them tonight!

JPQueen ... gone?

quakey — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:24:19 GMT

I am probably the last one to realize this, but JPQueen went out of business. D: I am ... in shock. In shock and not looking forward to my doujinshi costs doubling.

Edit: As of Sept 1 they're back!!

dies laughing

quakey — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:11:06 GMT

I was actually searching for "how to use a car seat" -- oh the things you find yourself wondering about that you never expected to need to know -- when I noticed something in Google's auto-complete search suggestions.

Instead of car seat, there were some other suggestions that started with C. How about...
C-
C-O-
C-O-N-D-
*starts laughing hysterically*

Yes, okay, juvenile humor, but they crack me up. Especially the last one. I'm glad people are using the Internet to find useful information, but it's still hillarious.

quakey — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:01:29 GMT

Believe it or not, this is part of a huge office discussion. I'm curious to see what other people do.

View Poll: Style Geekery

random tea rec

quakey — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:54:27 GMT

Montana Tea & Spice Trading LLC

I wouldn't know these people existed if it weren't for the fact that a relative of a friend works there. I would definitely recommend some of their "premium blends", especially Montana Gold which is like Christmas in a cup: cinnamon and orange peel flavors over the red tea base.

Best part about them: really inexpensive. A bag of 24 tea bags is less than $4. While I'm not saying these guys are incredibly gourmet, they are a good, solid, innovative tea company with good value for the money.

ETA: They taste like what you might think a Montana tea company should taste like: bold and unapologetic and full of flavors of life and the outdoors.

</random>

Quakey

Ha ha

That is all.

I read ANOTHER book.

Silly children.

Too Many Things

that's gotta suck D:

I just killed a tree :P

I MUST BLOG ABOUT THIS BEFORE THEY TURN OFF THE INTERNET!!!11!

Daddy does NOT approve

I'm fed up and I'm not going to take it anymore

Shari’ah

icons: Darker Than Black, Saiyuki

fish and foo

phone jerky

Ahoy, matey! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

econ geekery post

*throws up hands in exasperation*

JPQueen ... gone?

*dies laughing*

random tea rec

throws up hands in exasperation

dies laughing