http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897971.aspx

Over on Google (7th link down) I get a link to the summary overview page of the documentation.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897626.aspx

Not bad, but you would still have to hunt from there to get the elements you can use. However, what aggravates me most about Google’s results is everything else on the page are links to blogs.

If you ever want to find good programming documentation, Google seems to think you should be reading blogs. If it doesn’t return blogs, it sends you to forum posts, or worse yet, experts-exchange paid answers. Yea, that’s helpful, make me pay for information that if you had a GOOD ENOUGH search engine would have taken me to the documentation in the first place!

Alternately, Bing thinks I’ll find something helpful on the subject in one of the 3 power point files it returns. Anyone ever find anything helpful in a power point presentation online? I didn’t think so…

Even the professionally installed systems reveal their flaws after 2 months without rain, especially when 8 of those days were over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and most of the rest in the high 90′s. Water spreads out in round patterns on lawns with straight lines, revealing these little triangular brown patches all over the place.

What I’ve found that when you’re moving your hoses and various attachments around every day is that in the second month of drought your efforts resemble that of a plate spinner extending his efforts beyond his capabilities to run back to the first plate in time to save it before it tumbles to the ground. I now have brown rectangles, triangles, squiggles and various other shapes all over my lawn. More amusing is the areas that for some reason got double doses some days because I didn’t position everything correctly or forgot to move the water now have grass that is 3 times higher than everywhere else.

Turns out the St. Augstine loves heat, as long as it gets lots of water. It will reward you when you least want it to.

Hey, I just want it green, I didn’t want it to grow tall.

So I examined the whole system looking for ways I can improve my little setup. I came to the conclusion that if I got one of those 50 foot hoses with the tiny holes all along it I could manuver it around the yard to the long brown streaks of parched grass and transform it back into an oasis. Sounds like a plan.

Too bad we’re in a drought and Home Depot, Lowes, and Wal-Mart are stripped bare of the good stuff. I called around and found one Lowes within 10 miles that had the coveted sprinkler hose, as they call it. I thought all hoses were sprinkler hoses because that’s what I connect them to, but I was wrong. Those are lawn hoses, sprinkler hoses are the ones with the holes. I decided buy one instead of taking an existing hose and drilling tiny holes all along it. That could only end up badly.

Proudly I return my prize to the house, hook it up  and carefully spread out the 50 feet snaking it along to the areas that need it. I crank the water up and proceed to watch in horror and a single fountain shoots up 20 feet into the air. WTF?

After careful examination it turns out I got a bad hose. Punch machine must have gotten jammed I figure, stamping a dozen holes in the same spot.  Dissappointed but not wavering from my task, I quickly return the hose and grab another one, this time from a different box on the shelf. I’m hoping the problem with one lot was found and didn’t spread to an entire days work from that factory, or something like that.

It’s now too late to water, but I hook up the new hose to the system and lay it out so it will be ready for the 5am water wake up call. (It’s getting serious now, I have to get up to water to maximize my efforts at the optimal watering time.) The next morning I turn on the system and everything roars to life, including my new sprinkler hose. It looks like this one’s OK. Or so I thought…

An hour later I go back out to shut it all off and find not one, but two huge streams of water coming from the beginning and the end of my new sprinkler hose! WTF? I’m guessing now that the pressure eventually broke loose 2 spots on the line and all the water had been spraying out of those. To make it worse, one of those holes pointed toward the street shooting half way across. Free Car Wash!

Now I’m pissed.

I figure there’s no point in replacing this one, the whole lot is bad. In fact, lets just assume the whole company that made them is crap and save the time.

This is a job for duct tape! Better yet, waterproof duct tape!

I got this stuff to repair a pipe when I couldn’t get to the shut off valve and it really works. It sticks underwater if you want it to. What kind of genius do you have to be to invent a duct tape that will stick and stop leaks underwater? Off the scale, that’s what. I mark the 2 holes, shut off the line and patch them up. Confident I’ve got this one solved I turn on the water and incredibly, a new 3rd whole busts out the middle, and the cap the holds the end of the hose springs huge leaks all over.

This is without a doubt the worst product I have ever purchased in my life. Thank you Lowes, you really set the bar this time.

Incredibly, I stopped the leak on the end cap by crimping it with my bare hands. Who was working the press that day? Kate Moss? I proceeded to patch the 3rd hole. After all, it’s not like I’m going to run out of this amazing tape. Anybody have 100 feet of leaks? I didn’t think so.

The hose is now working, although I’m not holding my breath on it lasting the season. Just in time to get our first drop of rain today in 8 weeks and 2 days.

Timing, they say, is everything.

Stay green my friends…

Someone please explain to me the technique where you tell kids, during their only period of exercise at school, that if they aren’t absolutely silent they won’t get to do the next activity. This grand idea of the instructors is followed by tubby walking up and down the line with his arms folder over his girth waiting for 5 – 10 minutes while children are expected to sit (during PHYSICAL EDUCATION) until everyone, even the ADHD kids, are as still as possums. Then and only then they all get to jump up and play kick ball or whatever for the remaining 20 minutes.

Where did this so-called teacher learn this award-winning motivational tool, from 19th century English Nuns?

If you think our kids are fat, forcing them to sit still when they should be running until their out of breath doesn’t help. Math and science aren’t the only subjects where the American education system has failed…

Another note for teachers of all subjects, if you cannot pass the class you are attempting to teach in, you shouldn’t be there. That includes running laps with 8 year olds!

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1183339

The reason I mention that this information is a buzz-kill is as follows: Let’s say you’re happily playing the game, and consistently you get to the 4th battle and loose, perhaps sometimes getting past and falsely believing that you’re somehow improving. If that’s you then all you’re doing is mashing buttons. Good luck son, you’ll need it. However, once you realize that every attack has a counter attack, regardless of how good you think you are at the game you just hit the right button and you’re done. Anyone can learn it. That’s the bad part. Knowing this, the next time you lose you’ll realize its not because you’re not good enough, its because you didn’t take the time to memorize all the moves. Thus, the game is now as boring as math homework. Memorize the button combinations.

I am not inspired to memorize buttons, therefor I will not master the game, end of story. The game is now ruined. I was happier not knowing this, sorry to have passed this information on to you.

http://www.burbia.com/node/2366

Adding to it, I have this PSP charger that is so blindingly bright I’ve had to hide it under the couch. Does it really have to double as a blue flashlight?

http://www.hulu.com/watch/61211/family-guy-family-gay

Here’s a quote from the TV complain board that sums up the problems with the characters exactly:

“Characters that I knew and loved have become mere shadows of their greatness and have been severely dumbed down. Stewie was once a brilliant character, evil with a subtle feminine side which made him funnier and more two dimensional but he now is a flat out homosexual, and gay jokes are simply not funny. There are gay people in the world and Stewie being one doesn’t make him funny – and after writers heard that people didn’t like new Stewie they tried to force evil into him, like when he attacks Brian in Patriot Games, which was originally funny, until he did it a second time and more exaggerated when in earlier seasons it came naturally. Peter has gone from stupid to retarded and childish which is just terrible, since at least before he was occasionally funny. Meg has gone from being a gullible, ignored character to the butt of all jokes and Peter blaming Meg for a car accident or ignoring her comments is a lot funnier than Peter abusing her. Chris has gone from a hilarious moron with a talent for painting to basically absent. Worst of all, my favourite character Quagmire has gone from a terrific pervert with clever double entendres to a nut that does crazy songs and dances whenever he makes a silly remark. Characters that were barely funny the first time like Herbert, Vaudeville Guys and Evil Monkey are now almost main characters which is horrible since with them it is the same joke over and over.”

I have to say that a couple of the jokes on Sunday were worth a chuckle, but it felt like the show was mostly trying way to hard for a laugh, and falling flat on its face in the process. I think part of the problem is that writers become jaded when they’re digging for offensive material that is just on the edge of funny. After 7 years the writers are not offended anymore by the old ideas so they look farther, digging deeper and crossing the line of bad taste. Eventually, and this is what has happened here, they’re fully into the truly offensive realm where only they and their high friends find it funny/twisted. The rest of us have normal lives and only visit the show once a week or less, so we’re left with this sophomoric attempt at humor by our perspective.

Many shows fall into similar traps, where only a fresh perspective and a fresh team can resurrect it. Bring back a mildly idiotic Peter instead of a severely mentally deranged adult-child and this show might be saved.

I thought I’d poke around and see what happens to others with their blizzard games and came across this blog. Its pretty typical. Post on forums from other gamers/fanboys insist you have to install some malicious software or something to try to cheat the system to get banned, but this is not so. One little hiccup on Blizzards end and you’re done for. Whatever time you put in your characters are gone forever along with your ~$50.

I suppose I could rant on about customer service, etc, but at the end of the day that company has made it clear that they don’t care enough to answer their email. They have also made it clear that the software you bought is a service that they keep ownership of. Funny, I didn’t see on the box that the game was for RENT only, to be terminated at their sole discretion!

Someone tried to convice me I would like World of Warcraft. I took a look at it and thought it looks like garbage. Seriously blocky with chunky textures. I would have preferred they go the crysis route and make a game that would look good for years to come as hardware catches up. I’m done looking at squares and triangles on a screen with jagged edges and vomitous colored lighting effects.

Looking back I thought the best thing about Diablo II was the sound, even with the network lag. I guess I’m done pointing and clicking on monsters because Blizzard won’t be seeing any more money from me.

Just for fun, I thought I’d take the time to look up these so called rewards I’m missing out on. So here they are, drum roll please…

Best Buy Lame Rewards

So who is so desparate that they join a club to get a $5 gift certificate after spending a whopping $250.  Wow, a whole 2%. Now then, consider the irony of trying to save money at a store that sells mostly frivolous items you don’t need anyway. Then after you buy that useless item you’re hounded for 20 minutes to buy the useless warrantee, but that’s a subject for another time.