Starting Over

JournalScape's ISP Tiny Planned Network Outage

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 7 Aug 08 13:21:00 UT

JournalScape's ISP informs me that they will be fiddling with their network switches on Tuesday, August 19th between 2:00am
and 2:15am CDT. Should go by without most people even noticing, but just in case... here you go.

Paris Hilton responds to John McCain

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Tue, 5 Aug 08 17:25:00 UT

I journaled before about McCain using Paris Hilton in an anti-Obama ad. She responded. I haven't liked Paris Hilton until just this minute.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

"I'm Paris Hilton and I approve this message.. because I think it's totally hawt."

Things that are Awesome: This Sign

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Sat, 2 Aug 08 22:57:00 UT

In preparation for the flood of english speaking visitors to China, this restaurant decided to translate their name into English and have a big sign printed up. So, they went online to a Chinese to English translator and...

Johl, Hand of A'dal!!

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Fri, 1 Aug 08 23:40:00 UT

After many nights and many hours of attempts to kill Kael'thas, King of the Blood Elves.... WE KICKED HIS ASS!!!!!

Not just killed him... but seriously KICKED HIS ASS.

As a badge of honor for being able to accomplish this huge World of Warcraft feat, we are rewarded with a title that appears over our heads...Hand of A'dal. A'dal is this extra-dimensional creature of light. Incredibly powerful, considered a god by some people. Worshiped as a god by many. By accomplishing this great feat, A'dal considers you one of his right hand people. Freakin' cool.

When people look at you, they know that you were badass enough to kill both Lady Vashj and Kael'thas.

SO FREAKING COOL!!!

Frustration (not that I've actually had this problem..)

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Fri, 1 Aug 08 10:28:00 UT

I am a moron

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 31 Jul 08 14:30:00 UT

Recently I noticed that Google doesn't know that I am Kenny Wyland. I continued to do some research today and realized that almost no JournalScape pages are easily found in Google. I did some checking... and found that I'm an idiot.

I wrote some code which streamlined my ability to deliver some pages as cache-able content and some as not-cache-able. At the time it worked perfectly, but I think at some point later I introduced a regression error which caused most pages at JournalScape to be generated with the No-Cache header... so Google was properly respecting my request and not putting those pages in the index. *sigh*

I've fixed it now... let's hope we show up again soon.

McCain Ad links Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? Seriously?

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 31 Jul 08 11:38:00 UT

The McCain campaign is running a new anti-Obama commercial. The general upshot of it is that Obama has a "celebrity" status but is all flash and no substance. Ok, that attack doesn't surprise me much, it's a fairly common attack in politics and isn't even a very strong one, in my opinion.

The part that made me double take was at the beginning of the commercial, while they are building up the image of Obama as a "celebrity" they insert pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to connect him with the worst tabloid celebrity behavior.

Does this shit work? I mean, really? It's only a 1-2 second part of the video, but honestly... what jackass was sitting in the editing room and suggested "Can we put Paris Hilton in here somewhere?"

Here's the video:

Who is Kenny Wyland?

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Tue, 29 Jul 08 15:26:00 UT

I am!

Google only kind of knows it... so if you have a website or a blog or something, can you give me a hand? If you have a link to me (or if you have a space for a link and are willing), could you make sure that link has "Kenny Wyland" in it? That will help Google associate my first and last name to my journal.

I found out the search results aren't so awesome for my name when I tried out a supposed competitor to Google named Cuil (pronounced "cool"). Cuil is a new engine created by some ex-Googlers. First... if I have to tell you how to pronounce the name.. it's a bad choice in name. Second... they are claiming to have some seriously awesome results and speed, but they've clearly opened and advertised their system too soon.

I did a vanity search on Google for "Kenny Wyland" and received a bunch of pages that do actually refer to me (they just aren't MY page). I got my Amazon.com profile, my campaign contributions to Barack Obama, some videos that I posted on vimeo.com, and then it starts to get all wacky.

I did the same vanity search on Cuil and received some links to my videos on vimeo.com and then a bunch of South Park pages. I clicked on the links to the videos... and it took me to some wacky 3rd party link farm.

Regardless of search engine quality... help a brotha out! Gimmie some links to my journal here (link to http://www.journalscape.com/kenny/ pretty please) so that I can build some PageRank with Google.

Earthquake in SoCal

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Tue, 29 Jul 08 11:57:00 UT

Will update more as I get it, but we just had a pretty good quake. ~~5.8~~ 5.4 in Chino Hills with the current news data. I was in class when it happened, I'm all good.

From KTLA:

Preliminary information from the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake at magnitude 5.8, centered 29 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles near Chino Hills in San Bernardino County. Ten aftershocks occurred in the next dozen minutes, including three estimated at 3.8.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury in Los Angeles. San Bernardino County fire dispatch also had no immediate reports of damage.

The quake struck at 11:42 a.m. PDT. Buildings swayed in downtown Los Angeles for several seconds.

Senator Ted Stevens (R, Alaska) indicted on federal corruption charges

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Tue, 29 Jul 08 11:18:00 UT

Alaska Senator Is Indicted on Corruption Charges

Mr. Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven counts of falsely reporting income. The charges are related to renovations on his home and to gifts he has received. They arise from an investigation that has been under way for more than a year, in connection with the senatorâs relationship with a businessman who oversaw the home-remodeling project.

Ted Stevens is a crazy ass old coot who is the longest sitting Republican Senator in Congress. He spurred a pop culture reference with his speech against Net Neutrality where he said "the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes." While the Internet is indeed a series of tubes more than it is a dump truck, if you read the full text of the speech you can see he doesn't understand the Internet. His opposition to Net Neutrality is a bad thing, freedom of information transmission on the Internet is vital to its survival.

Senator Stevens is on the Senate Appropriations Committee and was previously the Chairman of the committee. The charges of misconduct are tied to his actions on .... oops, just had an earthquake! .... The charges of misconduct are tied to his actions on the committee, directing funds to certain businesses and getting kickbacks from those companies in the way of personal gifts or favors.

We HAD him... HAD HIM.

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Sun, 27 Jul 08 07:47:00 UT

I were totally going to kill Kael'thas last night, but our tank had a network error and got disconnected.

I'm convinced that Kael got scared and called up one of his buddies at Blizzard and convinced him to disconnect our tank from the network. That bastard!

I can't remember

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 24 Jul 08 21:10:00 UT

I popped online to post an entry about something but got distracted watching a video of Obama's speech in Berlin. Now I can't remember what I wanted to post about.

Obama's Speech in Berlin

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 24 Jul 08 16:40:00 UT

Loved it! I recommend reading the full text of Barack Obama's speech in Berlin, but what follows are excerpts that I found particularly important or inspirational.

He started the speech recounting the history of Berlin in regards to the Soviets and the Allied Airlifting that kept West Berlin alive. The overall point of the speech is that all the nations of the world need to be united. We all live in the same world and are dealing with the consequences of each other's actions. He mentions some common threats in the world: terrorism, global climate change, and nuclear weapons.

In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. Yet, in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it has become easy to forget this truth. And if we're honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny.

I haven't kept a great eye on the relationship between the US and Germany, but the parts I have seen have shown a great deal of animosity between Germany's leaders and the US during the Bush Administration. After 9/11, we had the world mourning with and for us, but the actions of the US has burned away all of that support and goodwill. I would really like to see us fix the problems caused by the Bush Administration and rebuild our friendship with the countries of the world. Go Obama! You can do it!

One of the things I like about Obama is that he's willing to point out flaws in other people and ourselves at the same time. He doesn't adopt the arrogant stance that everything the US does is golden.

In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth - that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe.

This view of America being the problem is prevalent around the world, not just in Europe. Hell, I think it's got a lot of merit! Also, it's impossible to deny that Americans have a pretty poor view of Europeans. The French take most of the brunt of that onslaught, but I've seen clips of The O'Reilly Factor that takes childish shots at Germany's Prime Minister and such without any content. Just schoolyard insults.

You can't expect to insult everyone around you and then be able to get a lot done. Gimmie some more Obama and let's get this country back on track! We used to be THE defacto Super Power in the world... and now we're looked at more like a schoolyard bully.

I only quote this...

This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations - including my own - will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one.

... so I can say: The children ARE our future. We need to teach them well and LET THEM LEAD THE WAY. We must show them all the beauty they possess inside.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

I love this! I'm tired of the arrogant stance that the actions of the US are above reproach. I appreciate that Obama states that while we are trying to do good, sometimes we fail to hit the mark and make mistakes. Mistakes cannot be fixed until we admit to them.

I loves me some Obama!

VoteVets Commerical in favor of leaving Iraq

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 24 Jul 08 09:23:00 UT

I can't remember where I saw this yesterday, via Slashdot or Google News, but this commercial is paid for by an organization called VoteVets. It features an Iraq War veteran expressing a view held by him and others (including myself). If we wanted to give them Freedom, then they need to have the freedom to decide their future. If the people of Iraq and the Prime Minister want us out, then we need to get out. That's their choice, that's part of the freedom that we supposedly brought to them. (I don't think we actually brought freedom to them, but this ad is designed to use their rhetoric against them.)

I like it. It's simple. It makes sense.

From my iPhone ...

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Tue, 22 Jul 08 19:21:00 UT

I am posting this via my iphone! JournalScape loads remarkably fast and is incredibly east to use even on a wireless device! W00t!