root1.org - rantings from the depths of a datacenter http://www.root1.org http://root1.org/?id=98 Haven't blogged in awhile, very busy. Really hasn't even sunk in that I'm in Japan this week... Here I am in Japan. Thankfully my first UMTS Blackberry works like a charm on both NTT and Softbank, and with Wifi in the hotel for data, the actual cost of usage will be reasonable. For anyone reading this without background, I was last here about 3 months ago, although in Shinjuku. This time I am in Akasaka. I usually have stayed in Shinjuku, though the previous couple trips I stayed in Nakano. All of these are really downtown Tokyo anyway for those who aren't familiar with the lay of the land. I think much of this is probably rambling as I haven't slept in about 22 hours, and its only 18:30 here, i.e. not even dinner time yet. Ohwell. Its pretty nice weather. I removed the liner from my leather jacket, and mostly just wear it for style purposes :p I look forward to taking some great pics, brought the Canon 20D along for once, especially in Kyoto, which should be Friday or Saturday. I watched like 8 hours of TV on the plane on my laptop, very rewarding. I do think the quality of service on Air Canada has dropped, even since my earlier JP flight this year. I was very thirsty by the end of things, and not liquored up at all. Sad. Anyway, not sure what Tom and I will eat tonight, we'll figure something out.C Cheers! http://root1.org/?id=97 Blogging is tough work. I probably should blog more as someone working for a company that makes a great deal of its money from bloggers. Oh well. Dropped my laptop, cracked the TFT. Ordered the new 1066mhz FSB MacbookAir with 128GB SSD, arriving Nov 5th. Ate lots of good food. Still haven't replaced my passport yet. Working lots, working well. Japan is two weeks away, San Diego and San Francisco are back to back after that. Haven't had much time to game, but that's okay. Lots of great games this holiday season for me. Need to visit my folks more often. Sister's conference may be the death of her. Had someone clean my condo, blown away with the results. Planning on starting a 1-year autocross/track car project, will be actively blogging the project elsewhere. Finally finished watching Code Geass R2 a few weeks ago, must buy blurays. Ordered 14 NDS games from Amazon.co.jp few weeks ago, will pick them up soon. *phew* I guess that's it for the last few weeks, until the next one! http://root1.org/?id=96 So my Japan tickets are booked, Nov 3-9. I will be in San Diego the week after and San Francisco the week after that, though those tickets aren't booked yet. What a great month coming up! The brisk fall weather is here, great with a leather jacket and a warm coffee! http://root1.org/?id=95 So new work is going well. Finally finished Disgaea 3. dMG has arrived and all is well. Finished watching Code Geass. [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/]]Consumed many delicious foods and beers. Now if only I could find enough time to sleep in this busy busy schedule! (Yes that's my 'I am still alive' post:) http://root1.org/?id=94 ... and I don't really feel like making much of a serious one now. As always I update the [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/condo_figure_case_rearranged.jpg]]photo galleries near daily (specifically misc, which I should really [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/skank_posing_for_pics_in_alley_near_yonge_and_eglington_1.jpg]]sub categorize). Still lovin' the Blackberry Bold, now running 4.6.0.144 (JP release), still playin' Disgaea 3 (lots and lots of content to be had!), got a new job (same type of work, minus the physical site work), still watching Code Geass, still eatin' sushi! Unfortunately I feel boring right now, though negligent for not posting in 20 days, so I forget all the little adventures (stupidities) of the past month :D Until the next one! http://root1.org/?id=93 So its been another [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/returning_to_the_car_at_night.jpg]]busy busy week. American LeMans on Sunday was a lot of fun. Didn't bring any of the lenses or bodies this year due to the mega hassle last year with heavy rain, and a chance of rain in the forecast. So [[http://root1.org/gallery/events/alms2008/gt3_rotors.jpg]]I didn't get any really [[http://root1.org/gallery/events/alms2008/the_winning_lmp1_audi.jpg]]good pictures. Although here is the [[http://root1.org/gallery/events/alms2008/coolest_porsche.jpg]]Windows Vista GT3 cup car, sadly it didn't lock up in the first corner. Monday I finally decided to take home the Foundry FastIron2 I had sitting in the colo. Its pretty useless minus a few gigs of capacity and two OC3/12 ports. Sadly its also like 60lbs loaded, and [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/foundry_fastiron2_waiting_for_green_light_at_corner_of_yonge_and_lakeshore.jpg]]the 10 minute walk was juts brutal. [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/last_three_blackberry_handsets_in_order__9000_8310_8700.jpg]]I bought a Blackberry BOLD aka Blackberry 9000 yesterday. What a great phone! The display is gorgeous, 480x320 like the iPhone but smaller; the keyboard is just great, like the 8800; it has four speakers, which it uses to play music or divx/xvid audio incredibly well; 3G, wifi, gps, camera; 1gb internal flash + 8GB microSD; a 624mhz ARM CPU; need I go on? OS 4.6 is not so revolutionary on 4.5, it has all of 4.5's improvements, and adds slightly newer widgets and cursors for the first time in like 5+ years of Blackberry. The entire flow of the UI is a lot better, and everything is super fast on the 624mhz CPU. All my 3rd party apps still work perfectly. Jivetalk seamlessly switches between wifi and 3g, and nobody sees you sign on or off. Best part is tether is much more useful. Even right downtown within 151 Front, I was able to sustain 1mbps today demoing it for someone on my laptop. Great! [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/waiting_at_EB_for_purolator_with_disgaea3.jpg]]Today I was camped out at EBgames waiting for Purolator to come with Disgaea 3, and to much lesser extent, Tales of Vesperia. From there I went straight home and began playing it while waiting for my 3pm appointment. Not that I haven't played the jap version extensively, but it really is a great game. High res 3d maps and menus, 240p sprites. The real improvement is 16:9 and 48khz stereo. My perfect kind of next gen game! Last night we ate at a [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/brazillian_bbq.jpg]]Brazillian BBQ restaurant. There were 13 kinds of meat brought around on swords. [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/brazillian_bbq_meats_before_hands_became_too_dirty_for_phone.jpg]]It was a very very good meal. Nothing beats eating 5 kinds of animals in a single meal. Highlights include a very nice lamb, chicken hearts, parmigiana pork and a delicious cinnamon pineapple. [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/brazillian_bbq_sides.jpg]]Delicious! I think thats my adventures so far this week, root out! http://root1.org/?id=92 So to start off this wonderful and busy week, I ran Windows Update on my work PC, only to find that the graphics card no longer existed after reboot. After fucking with 3-4 sets of drivers including hacked drivers, I gave up and decided that it would be relegated to terminal services only. This was mostly an excuse to buy a more media oriented laptop to complement my work oriented eeepc. So I went out laptop shopping, and settled on [[http://root1.org/gallery/computer_hardware/new_laptop_1.jpg]]an HP Compaq. At 15.4'' it was [[http://root1.org/gallery/computer_hardware/new_laptop_2.jpg]]slightly larger than what I was initially looking for, however the display has [[http://root1.org/gallery/computer_hardware/new_laptop_basement.jpg]]quite slim borders, making it acceptable. Minus the shitty TN panel, common on all laptops nowadays, its a very nice laptop at $600. Core2Duo 2.0ghz, 3GB RAM, 250GB disk, and totally whisper quiet. Needless to say I am very very pleased as it [[http://root1.org/gallery/computer_hardware/new_laptop.jpg]]performs quite well and has a very nice feel to it, at any price point. Witness my amazing [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/cooking_mexican_sausages_1.jpg]]steam boil before [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/cooking_mexican_sausages_2.jpg]]grill technique used on [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/cooking_mexican_sausages_4.jpg]]Mexican sausages! So tonight was our official going away party for Joe, although we've since decided to go for steak on Thursday as well. Food wise, we did quite well with a [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/joe_party_sushi.jpg]]tray of sushi and [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/joe_party_pizza1.jpg]]two extra large [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/joe_party_pizza2.jpg]]pizzas, plus an overkill amount of snacks. [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/rum_and_cognac.jpg]]Alcohol wise we did quite well too, although sadly I had to leave at 5am (more on that in a bit), so I couldn't have that much. The coup de graces however, was the [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/joe_party_cake.jpg]]cake Wallace had made, an idea he had at least a year ago, made even [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/joe_party_seeing_cake.jpg]]more funny now especially with Joe returning to Taiwan and the IOC's refusal to recognize it as a country. It was awesome :) Coincidentally I also decided to try the Lightscribe burner out in this laptop with some [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/lightscribe_goatse.jpg]]very amusing results. [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/more_lightscribe_fun.jpg]]Shitty camera phone pics aside, it really is a cool tech, albeit more as an [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/lightscribe_code_geass.jpg]]amusement than useful. Sadly I had to leave earlier than desired, aka no sleepage, because I've got to head off to Mosport in about... 30 minutes, for American LeMans. Hopefully it will not rain like last year, and I will not get the flu again. Hopefully! Cheers and root out! http://root1.org/?id=91 Ok so its been a long while since I've posted anything. Apologies to those who I promised a post to, like 800 times. Sadly, interesting things happen EVERY DAY and by the time I am home I never have the energy or desire to blog about them. In fact, I can count the number of times I've been home before like 3-6am in months on one hand, and not counting the thumb. I have some silly stories about spontaneously planned and subsequently canceled Japan trips, retarded customers, and even stupider vendors, but they'll have to wait for another time... Thanks to the camera phone though, I've got loads and loads of pictures. So lets skim over some of the details of the past month... [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/12_new_cabinets_moved_in.jpg]]First off we got another dozen cabinets delivered. Moving them up to the suite was a bitch load of work. Thankfully we've got to sell atleast, and with our current momentum, they will be sold out within a month or two. [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/wallace__round_1.jpg]]We've had a lot of bar nights lately, more so than usual because [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/aug09_2008_joe_finishing_6th_redbull_double_vodka.jpg]]Joe / Tora is moving back to Taiwan, and we need to get in as much boozing as we can. We will be having our ultimate going away party August 23rd, i.e. Saturday or next week, and I hope to post some great pics :) [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/downpour.jpg]]Aside from that we've had just shit loads of rain, and it has been rather unpleasant since the weather has been so nice otherwise, rather cool, etc. I am just glad it has gone away whenever we've had equipment to load on our loading dock at the datacenter. Here are some of this months food pics [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/flaming_lobster_sushi.jpg]]Flaming lobster sushi, [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/bacon_wrapped_scalops.jpg]]Bacon wrapped scallops, [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/mongolian_grillage_2.jpg]]Mongolian grillage, [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/fried_squidy.jpg]]fried squid, [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/tons_of_handrolls.jpg]]tons of hand rolls, and [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/giant_spider_and_queen_of_salmon.jpg]]tons of maki, [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/legendary_tacos_3.jpg]]legendary tacos, [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/epic_brekfast_for_dinner.jpg]]epic breakfast, [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/brisket_sandwhich.jpg]]massive sandwiches, and [[http://root1.org/gallery/food/delicious_tulip_steak.jpg]]STEAK! In the same spirit as the above montage, here are some silly pics from this month... [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/anybody_in_there.jpg]]Anybody in there? [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/clean_me_2.jpg]]Clean me! [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/bells_still_current_out_of_band_for_colocated_gear.jpg]]Bells still-current(?) Out of band mgmt [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/bells_still_current_out_of_band_for_colocated_gear.jpg]]setup for remote colos! [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/sleeping_in_yonge_eglington_timmies.jpg]]Sleeping in a Yonge/Eglington Timmies! [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/do_not_put_in_mouth.jpg]]Do not put in [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/do_not_put_in_mouth.jpg]]mouth. [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/cabby_hits_cyclist__only_fare_gets_out_to_help.jpg]]Cabbie hits cyclist, only fare gets out to see if hes ok. The 151 Parking garage has been [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/151_parking_garage_leaks_1.jpg]]more disgusting that ever for the past month, here are a few pics of it. [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/151_parking_garage_leaks_2.jpg]]Notably I will no longer park there :p Yesterday on my way to dinner [[http://root1.org/gallery/nature/front_street_bat_1.jpg]]I spotted a bat at waist height on Front and Yonge. Now it was day time but a bit rainy, which atleast kept crowds down, but with all the drunks, bums and similar in the area, I was a bit worried [[http://root1.org/gallery/nature/front_street_bat_2.jpg]]about the little guy. Mostly because they're pretty uselessly stunned during the day. Using an paid-postage envelope filled with flyers (that I was on my way to send) I managed to lift him into a barred window about 7 feet up, that would protect him until night fall. Once I disturbed him [[http://root1.org/gallery/nature/front_street_bat_3.jpg]]he barred his [[http://root1.org/gallery/nature/front_street_bat_3.jpg]]teeth, hissed and clicked (the sonar) at me. Was very cute. Last but not least, I was picking my sister up this morning, and she lives next to the Chinese Embassy. There are a minimum of two cop cars in front of her building at any time, and there are daily protests by vicious Buddhist monks and falun gong meditation warriors. Today the embassy was actually [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/chinese_embassy_welding_a_double_height_fence_with_barbed_wire_onto_existing_fence_1.jpg]]welding on additional fencing to [[http://root1.org/gallery/misc/chinese_embassy_welding_a_double_height_fence_with_barbed_wire_onto_existing_fence_2.jpg]]double the height and add barbed wire. I snapped some pics and they scowled at me heavily. Until the next one, root out! http://root1.org/?id=90 [[http://root1.org/gallery/computer_hardware/WD_VelociRaptors.jpg]]First off here are a load of 16*300G Western Digital VelociRaptors. As you can see they're 2.5 drives in 3.5 heatsink sleds, very cool. I'd love to slug all 16 into one box which I'd use to.... rar and unrar stuff very fast. [[http://root1.org/gallery/computer_hardware/new_quadcore_xeons_2.5ghz.jpg]]Here are some of the new quadcore Xeons to accompany the drives. Nothing too interesting, I just think the boxes are pretty :P I've also been 3.5 days without caffeine now. Well not without, I am having 1 lightly caffeinated drink / day, i.e. a single tea or diet Pepsi. Its a big jump from the >1gram of caffeine per day from 2x venti coffees from Starbucks plus redbull plus pepsi plus whatever else I got my hands on. Aside from the usual headaches, I've been having some light mood swings downward. However the upside is the past two nights I've actually had dreams again for the first time in ages. So that's definitely cool. I'm sure my overall mood and energy levels will be a bit more crash free if I can keep it up. Root out! http://root1.org/?id=89 ...or just totally unmotivated to blog :P [[http://root1.org/gallery/computer_hardware/41_server_chassis_on_our_loading_dock_(5_not_pictured__still_in_boxes).jpg]]Well here are most of the 41 servers we unloaded last night. As taken by the camera in my new Blackberry 8310. I have been taking a lot of frivolous pics, I think camera phones are a dangerous addiction :P http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id= http://root1.org/?id=