Year: 2003

Thank God for Brian Westbrook. I really don’t know what else to say about my Birds right now except they dodged a bullet yesterday and kept the season alive. What really burns me is that had they won last week (which they should have), they’d be 4-2 right now and tied with the Cowboys for the division lead. Instead they’re 2 games behind them and currently down in the tie-breakers. With the Jets and Falcons coming up, this could be the real turning point for their season.

So I was just poking around Google, doin’ my whole “let’s see where I am on the net” thing. I spell my first name with an ‘h’, but I did a quick check with ‘Tom Slattery‘ and the top links are still the CS guy from Arizona, an odd writer who discusses public housing and pornography, and of course the one who sells Flying Squrrels. Since one of my primary curiosities is whether or not old friends/acquaintances could find me I went with ‘Thomas Slattery‘ next. Much to my surprise, the top link is a definition for my name in a slang dictionary. Personally I don’t think the definition really fits:

One that has a long face and is very very arrogant about picking girls (that are ugly) and about his sport and well being.

I just don’t think my face is that long.

P.S.(After poking around a bit it appears that a few guys were posting various definitions for each others’ names on the site. I still find it odd that mine came up and it’s number one on Google.)

I’m sure most of you in my legions of adoring fans have noticed the gallery I maintain on this website – just look at the menu to your right if you’re lost. It’s a delightful little romp through my drunken experiences around Hoboken… oh yeah, and some shots of my family. Since I bought my Canon PowerShot A40 last year I’ve taken over 7000 pictures in a quest to document my rather mundane existence. I love this little guy and have recommended it, and its successors, to everybody whose asked me about digital cameras. But as my “abilities” have grown and my inclinations have branched out into more “sophisticated” photography, I have noticed shortcomings that prevent a $300 from being what I want now. I’ll get shots from Tuesday’s OpenMic up soon enough and you can see that the photos, while generally well laid out and planned, do not have proper lighting and look a tad grainy. The Ristra tends to have lowlighting, and Tuesday was really bad which meant I was forced to use the flash all night with a 200 ISO setting. Enter digital SLR.
Continue reading “Digital photography”

No, this isn’t a Star Wars post. That’s my new nephew’s name – Lucas George Jackson. Before anybody accuses my sister and brother-in-law of being major geeks, the middle name George is for Alex’s father, just as their first born (Caleb Thomas) was named for Suzanne’s father (my father, too!). And just in case you wanted to see just how cute he is, here’s a picture along with his big brother.

I would like to read more. I have piles of books that I’ve purchased over the past few years (many with bookmarks buried inside) and very few that I’ve actually read. Yet I am still looking for more to buy. Most recently I’ve been considering Al Franken’s liberal-minded Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and possibly even Ann Coulter’s freak fest for a look at the other side (and a good laugh). For some odd reason I decided to read a few reviews. We all know my general take on Internet reviews, so I’m not sure why I thought this would be any different. I don’t see a way to link directly to the reviews on Amazon.com, so I’ll simply quote them.
Continue reading “Double negation and the art of reviews”

So I’m called up to our production facility yesterday. I don’t even know that I can say much about the specifics because of FDA regulations and all, but I’ll try to tell the story anyway. Basically Paul and Denis were in a bit of a panic because they needed to start some processes by next week and the control system kept rebooting. It turns out that the control box was just a modified PC chasis mounted inside a metal box with just a touch LCD screen exposed – it even ran Windows XP. The whole rebooting issue was actually just that – no crashing, no memory dumps, no kernel panics – the machine just suddenly shutt off and restarted. There was no indication that the software was causing the problems, and it continued to happen even when it was isolated from the rest of the systems. Eventually I concluded that, although the power seemed clean, there must be an issue with the power supply. After replacing it with one from an old system everything ran perfectly and they proceeded to sing my praises.
Continue reading “Computer geek or fraud?”

I better link to Dave Barry’s take on telemarketers before I forget it. After linking from someone else’s page Brian sent it to me via e-mail. It really is great.

Challenging incumbent stupidest state Florida, California just completed a move that all intelligent people recognize makes no sense. They have removed their own elected Governor Davis in favor of an Austrian body-builder. For some reason, a large number of people from one of our most liberal states has decided that a man with no political abilities whatsoever would make a better Governor than… a porn star? What the hell is wrong with that state? People are so clueless that they fail to realize that this was nothing more than a power move by the Republican Party which is sick of not being able to win elections legitimately. Instead they cry foul about the horrible economic situation to force a recall and then ignore that issue completely because it will, of course, point back to them in the end. Anyone else notice that Bush has helped the entire nation into an economic downfall? And of course the funny thing is that people still don’t get why I think democracy is a lousy form of government.

I don’t even want to post much about all the crap that’s gone on recently. Mainly it centers around the total BS that is the Hoboken Police Department (I may be sued for having my car totaled by some asshole cop) and moves on to me getting sick the night of Gibby-palooza. At least I got to see my boys pull out a nailbiter at the end while a fever rushed through my body. Lisa and I also went shopping at the Secaucus Outlets on Saturday and spent a lot of money. While Van Heusen was the biggest winner (accounting for more than half of our purchases), the best bargain of the day was an incredible leather jacket at Kenneth Cole that I paid nearly a quarter of the MSRP for – just in time for the cold months ahead.
Continue reading “First slammed, then sickened”

“And on the seventh day, God came to rest upon the Earth in the form of Bruce Campbell…”

What can I say, I love the king. When the Angelika sent out newsletter saying that Bruce “Don’t call me Ash” Campbell was going to be at showings for his new movie last Saturday, I nearly wet myself. And that’s looked down upon at my company. Needless to say, I got tickets as soon as I could and rubbed it in the faces of those who could not attend. Although I didn’t get to shake his hand (I probably would have passed out from the excitement), Bruce came down to the front of the theater (about 4 feet from my seat!!!) before the movie and conducted a fun Q&A session before it began. It included him making fun of all of his fans, ridiculing his own lack of true success, mocking other actors, hanging up on someone’s cell phone, and getting laughs from everybody. He really is that awesome. And of course I had my trusty camera, so here are some side shots of the Chin and 3 ladies who just wanted to worship the King. Now, on to the movie…
Continue reading “Bubba Ho-Tep”