Krunk4Ever!

So awhile back (probably around 3 months ago), my first RAID5 file server (4×160GB) had a hiccup, where it wouldn’t detect 1 of the 4 drives and the Promise RAID controller would enter this “critical state”. I powered off the computer and checked to make sure all the cables were fine and made sure they were snug and tight. I rebooted, it started working again. Of course it needed to rebuild the drive (which takes ~2 hours) and after the rebuild was successful, I thought nothing much about it.

A few weeks ago, I noticed it was once again in critical state. To clarify, I hardly log onto this machine as it only serves as a file server, so I have no idea how long it’s been in critical state, but I can only assume it’s been for quite some time. I rebooted the machine several times and it finally detected the drive and started to rebuild. This time, after rebuilding, using Promise’s PAM (Promise Array Management) software, I told it to synchronize to make sure everything was working fine. When I came back to check on it, I noticed it kicked that drive off the array again.

I decided to move all the data onto my second file server (yes, I know that I promised to blog about that and yes, it’s still coming. ETA: undetermined) as a prevention measure. The 2nd file server is a 2.5TB and had over 50% free so it can easily accommodated a 480GB file server, which was nowhere near full.

I finally got around to testing that file server. First I tried changing SATA cables, but it pretty much failed immediately after rebuilding. I wanted to avoid running diagnostics on the drive since this was a hardware raid controller, the individual drives weren’t expose to the controller, which meant it required me to take the drive out and plug it into a different machine (since this motherboard doesn’t have on-board SATA ports). I finally caved and took the drive out and plugged it into my main box.

I installed Seagate’s SeaTools for Windows and pretty much 5 seconds into the short test, results show FAILED. Sigh… Looks like I’m going to need to RMA the drive. Interestingly enough, I was still able to format the drive. This is my first RMA in years. The last one was probably back in college?

I’m not saying Seagates are bad. In fact, 90% of the hard drives in my computers are Seagates and the other 3 drives on my Promise RAID controller are the exact same drive, so I’m guessing this was just a bad one in the batch.

So I was reading this article: Twin, separated at birth, sues for mix-up a few days ago and thought to myself, if I found out my child was mixed up at the maternity ward a few years down the road, what would I do? Would I exchange the kids and get my real child back? Or would I keep the existing one since I’ve already developed a bond with him/her?

These stores aren’t that uncommon either as I’ve been seeing more and more of them.

Personally, I think I’d keep the child I already have, but there’s still something about screwed up about the situation. Not only will this knowledge bother you for the rest of your life, you’ll probably have recurring feeling of wanting to know how your real child is doing. And I’m not saying that you can’t love this child as much as your own, but it’ll definitely change things.

I also think it depends on how long I’ve had the child. If it’s been only 3-6 months, I might actually consider swapping back.

So I got this list from Digg:

25 Ways to Tell You’re Grown Up

1. Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
   Yah… all my houseplants are fake and purchased by my mom.
2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
   No beer here, just tons of drinks.
4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
   Hahahahaha
5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
6. You watch the Weather Channel.
7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of “hook up” and “break up.”
8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
   So true, yet so sad. I miss summer vacation.
9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as “dressed up.”
10. You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.
11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
12. You don’t know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
    Does knowing when Wendy’s closes count?
13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.
14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald’s leftovers.
15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
16. You take naps.
17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.
18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.
    I guess doing a basket of chicken nuggets 3am is still fine.
19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.
20. A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good shit.”
    When is wine ever “good shit”?
21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
    Still skip breakfast and usually lunch. Waking up at noon has the problem.
22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again.”
23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
    “real” work. ;p
24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.
25. When you find out your friend is pregnant you congratulate them instead of asking “Oh shit, what the hell happened?”

Bonus:

26: You read the entire list looking desperately for one sign that doesn’t apply to you and can’t find one to save your sorry old ass. Then you forward it to a bunch of old friends ’cause you know they’ll enjoy it too. And now you know why I am forwarding this to you..

Pretty funny list. See my remarks above (in italics).

Awhile back, I had the following conversation with Tera, FuzzyWuzzy, and Angelus:

<pantsumimi> do you have a Wii, krunk?
<Krunk> nope
<pantsumimi> blackberry?
<pantsumimi> iPhone?
<pantsumimi> random mid-range sports car e.g. SLK or RX 7 / RX 8 ?
<Krunk> nope
<Krunk> my phone is a pretty simple guy:
<Krunk> samsung SGH-t519
<Krunk> my car is what i had since high school: honda civic 2001
<pantsumimi> you’re quite possibly the worst yuppie ever (Expand…)
<pantsumimi> shame shame
<pantsumimi> or, depending on how you look at it
<pantsumimi> the best yuppie ever
<Krunk> haha
<Krunk> i don’t really consider myself a yuppie ;p
<pantsumimi> you meet enough of the criteria to count =P
<Krunk> what are the criteria?
<pantsumimi> young, fiscally solvent, growing affluence
<Krunk> haha
<Krunk> i always associated yuppies as to those who dress themselves up in like banana republic, and are typically douche bags ;p
<fuzzywuzzy> haha
<fuzzywuzzy> hey what’s wrong with br
<Krunk> oh nothing is wrong with br
<fuzzywuzzy>
<fuzzywuzzy> actually everything is wrong with them
<Krunk> if you dress up in br and are a douche bag
<Krunk> i consider you a yuppie
<fuzzywuzzy> it’s over priced gap
<fuzzywuzzy> br is for wanna be yuppies
<Angelus> don’t forget hollister or whatever the shit is named
<pantsumimi> seen american psycho?
<pantsumimi> they’re yuppies
<pantsumimi> they’re super yuppies
<fuzzywuzzy> you’re a junior yuppie if you’re a douche swathed in br
<pantsumimi> born millionaires
<fuzzywuzzy> brooks brothers
<pantsumimi> why would a clothing chain call itself banana republic
<fuzzywuzzy> now if you’re a douche and draped head to toe in brooks bros….you’re a yuppie
<pantsumimi> that’s just utterly stupid
<Angelus> it’s innuendo
<pantsumimi> for what?
<pantsumimi> useless?
<fuzzywuzzy> banana hammock?
<Krunk> haha
<Krunk> the picture they have is:
<Krunk> Christian Bale portraying a yuppie in American Psycho
<Angelus> Christian Bale is great
<pantsumimi> I don’t see any good things about a banana republic, so for a whole clothing chain to call itself that is just beyond me
<Krunk> agreed
<pantsumimi> urban dictionary?
<Krunk> yeah
<pantsumimi> yeah, that’s a pretty good example
<Krunk> the 2nd definition is what i always thought yuppies were
<pantsumimi> might be a bit apotheosis, though
<Krunk> a very arrogant well put together young urban professional who you more than likely will find wearing gucci and prada with a large bank account which they love to brag about. You can find them drinking Starbucks, living in a one bedroom apartment in a city where they will pay 1000-2000 a month for and spending another 3000 a month on their credit cards. They brag about their designer clothes and love to flaunt them , as well as their wealth. They look down upon anyone who isnt as wealthy or high status as they are. Men are likely to be found wearing designer suits, gucci preferably with slicked back or well cut hair. The women will be wearing prada/gucci and fendi. The most arrogant concieted fucks on the planet.
<pantsumimi> that’s prol the more contemporary meaning
<pantsumimi> I don’t think ‘yuppies’ by today’s definition are fiscally solvent at all
<Angelus> http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/
<Angelus> this quite accurately describes yuppies if you ask me

Apparently Yuppie is derived from YUP which stands for: (Y)oung (U)rban (P)rofessional which I never knew before. As the conversation above shows, I always thought it referred to rich douche bags. Anyway, Angelus pointed me to this new blog which I’ve been reading religiously: Stuff White People Like. It’s a blog describing white people and what they do, how they behave, etc. and how you can exploit these data points to your advantage.

For example, some of the recent posts I enjoy include:

• Bumper Stickers
• Grammar
• Dinner Parties
• Outdoor Performance Clothes
• Shorts
• T-Shirts
• Threatening to Move to Canada

Just a little rant I have. I always thought TV speakers were a waste once you switch to a speaker system (receiver + surround sound). Awhile back (yes this entry has been queued for some time), I thought to myself, why not allow the TV speakers have 2 modes: stand-alone or center.

First of all, TV speakers are typically quite decent. They’re not superb, but they’re typically not low quality stuff either as TV manufacturers want to entice you to purchase the TV.

And if you’re in the market to purchase a speaker system piece by piece, it’d be sweet to be able to use the TV speakers as the center as they’re already situated in the correct positions. That way, TV speakers just don’t become useless add-ons that will never used again.

Unfortunately, hardly any TV manufacturers enable this scenario as I’ve only seen a handful of TVs that support using their speaker as a center speaker. I doubt it cost that much more to enable this feature. Sigh…

This is sweet! While searching for flights to fly home for my brother’s graduation, I found out that JetBlue now has a direct flight from Seattle to Long Beach (equidistant as LAX to my house, minus the horrible traffic). I typically fly Alaska Airlines since they’re usually the cheapest (~$300) non-stop flight from SEA to LAX and had consistent quality. I’ve always liked JetBlue with the personal LCD and the quality of service, but was sad when I found out that they didn’t have any flights from Seattle to LA. I even emailed them awhile back voicing my sadness.

Anyway, I just booked a flight back for 4 days in mid-June to attend my brother’s graduation and it came out to only $243! For comparison sake, the cheapest Alaska Airline to LAX was $303. However, Alaska Airlines does have more daily flights between Seattle and LA than JetBlue does.

I think JetBlue and I are going to become much better friends now.

Thanks to kattails2 for this deal. Since people have being coming to my site looking for Six Flags Discount, I decided to have a 2008 post.

Six Flags
One-Day Adult Admission at Childs Price.
use promo code- located in the upper right corner
COLDSTONE

Instructions:

1. Go to Six Flags Tickets
2. Select your park of choice in the combo box.
3. A new window should open and on the upper right hand corner, it says ENTER PROMO HERE
4. Enter the following promotion code: COLDSTONE or PJKID

According to the description provided, the deal expires on 9/28/2008.

One-Day Ticket - Everybody Pays Kids Price

One-Day admission to Six Flags _____ valid regular operating days during the 2008 season through December 31. The discounted ticket cannot be combined with any other offer. Visit sixflags.com for specific operating schedule. Children 2 and under FREE!

Everyone Pays the Kid’s Price!
Ticket valid through 9/28/2008.

Apparently if you’re planning to go either today or tomorrow, Six Flags Magic Mountain has a Memorial Day discount for $26.99/person.

Enjoy!

Update: Promo code PJKID also works (expires 7/31/2008)

So I got this music video from Digg: Weezer - Pork and Beans. Besides the fact it’s quite a catchy song and I’ve had it on loop for the past 8 hours, the music video was awesome. It has tons of internet memes and I’m curious if all them are the real thing.

Here’s the list of videos reference (collected from Digg comments and other sites):

• One Man Band
• Numa Numa (Dragostea Din Tei)
• Dramatic Look (Gopher)
• How the Dramatic Prairie Dog was Born
• afro ninja
• Diet Coke + Mentos
• GI Joe PSA - Gay
• Guiness World Record for most T-Shirts worn at one time.
• Chris Crocker - LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!
• All Your Base Are Belong To Us
• Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question
• Star Wars Kid
• Crank That Soldier Boy
• Evolution of Dance
• “Chocolate Rain” Original Song by Tay Zonday
• K-Fed Popozao
• Daft Hands - Technologic
• Daft Bodies - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
• Shoes the Full Version
• Charlie The Unicorn
• It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!
• Will It Blend? - iPod
• Ryan vs Dorkman (Light Sabers)
• Sneezing Panda
• Best Sex Ever!!! (Rainbow Socks)
• Guy catches glasses with face
• Mickey Mouse Animation 3D (Donald Duck and the Dancing Gorillas)
• The duck Donald (Donald Duck and the Dancing Gorillas)
• UFO Haiti

The ones I quite haven’t figured out are:

Rainbow Socks?

So there’s a spaceship, a trio of dancing cg animation of what I assume to be gorillas and a duck with a purple hat, a panda, and some naruto like guy?

Update: Jon commented that the panda was from the Sneezing Panda video.

Update #2: While going through YouTube’s All Time Most Viewed videos, I landed on kicesie’s videos, and her icon is a girl with rainbow socks on the couch. I’m going to assume that’s what Weezer was going after with the rainbow socks girl in this video: Best Sex Ever!!!

Update #3: While searching for most viewed videos with “sword” or “ninja”, I landed on this: Urban Ninja, which featured a guy wearing a black shirt with a red 天 (sky) on his back:

But he doesn’t wield a sword, so I don’t think he’s the one featured in the video. The only video game/anime character I can think of that has a 天 on his back is Akuma (Gouki) from Street Fighters:

However, Tera agrees with me that the guy looks more like he’s from Naruto.

Update #4: Thanks to chloe for pointing out they also referenced the video clip of where several guys throw and catch rayban sunglasses with their face, as shown in the video where the Mentos “scientists” throws a goggle and the GI Joe character catches it.

Update #5: Thanks to Schmuel for pointing out that the Donald duck and the dancing gorillas were from a serious of 3D rendered Disney character videos made with motion capture: Worst. MoCap. Ever.. You can see more of these videos on doctorlegua’s YouTube Channel. Apparently these were made with some software called iClone.

Update #6: Thanks to Bryan for pointing out the UFO/spacecraft video: UFO Haiti

Just noticed I forgot to post last week’s top posts. Here’s the top posts for the past 2 weeks:

1. How to download HD Trailers from Apple.com
2. Six Flags Discount (~50% Off)
3. 4 Free Xbox Live Arcade Games
4. Windows Update Error: 80070490
5. Free AutoCheck Report (Similar to Carfax)
6. Reindexing Media Center Library
7. Haloid
8. Missing Codecs in Firefox to Play Video in Gallery2
9. LeekSpin
10. Print USPS First Class, Media Mail, Parcel Mail Postage for FREE!

2 weeks ago…

Nothing too interesting to note here. All have been consistent winners in the past.

So Tera showed me this ad: Moccona coffee: Quest Cendrillon Cinderella. I don’t usually blog about advertisements (well, unless they’re on my site), but this ad was just too good that I wanted to share. The music was just so amazing and I spent hours trying to find it but only to hit a dead end. The story the commercial tells is also really sweet. If you don’t want the commercial to be ruined, skip to the next paragraph. Or else read on and be spoiled! [Begin Spoilers] It’s similar to the Cinderella glass slipper story, where this guy goes around town with a glass cap trying to find the coffee jar which the cap fits in. One by one, he rejects woman after woman, but ultimately finding the one and only girl. I guess one can only imagine how awesome the party must’ve been if someone dropped their coffee cap. ;p [End Spoilers]

There’s actually a longer version (80 seconds vs 60 seconds) on their homepage: Moccona Coffee - Never settle for less than special. At first I didn’t notice any differences, but as I watched them side by side, I realize that it showed more of the women’s responses.

While searching for the music, I found this page: Moccona Coffee in Quest for Romance

The Quest was developed at M&C Saatchi, Sydney, by creative director Ben Welsh, art director Michael Jones, copywriter Lizzie O’Hara-Boyce, agency producer Rod James.

Filming was shot on location in Montevideo, Uruguay, by Noah Marshall via The Sweet Shop, with director of photography Ian McCarroll, and producer Tony Whyman.

Post production was done at Digipost and Fin Design in New Zealand.

Moccona is a brand of coffee produced by the Dutch corporation Douwe Egberts and popular in Australia and New Zealand. The coffee is regarded as one of the superior brands in the market. In my household Moccona jars are kept to store nuts and confectionery. The lid does look as though as it could have been formed by the sea.

Inside the comment area, M&C Saatchi posted:

Thanks for the comments guys. The music was created for us by composer Elliott Wheeler through Nylon Studios in Sydney. We’re soon going to post an mp4 on the moccona.com.au website that you’ll be able to download. For a ltd time there’s also a longer (80sec) version up there.

In the posted YouTube video, Mocconateam posted:

Thanks for all the positive feedback - we’re glad you like the work.
The commercial was filmed in Montevideo, by a director called Noah Marshal from The Sweetshop (Aukland). We cast all the actors locally except for the hero and the blonde woman who came from Argentina. The music was by a composer called Elliott Wheeler who we commissioned specially for the job through Nylon Studios here in Sydney, Australia.

Since the music was “specially commissioned” for this advertisement, that means it’s no where to be found besides ripping it from the ad. I also wasn’t able to find the .mp4 file that they mention would be posted on their homepage.

Update: Thanks to Chriszam for letting me know that Moccona has released the mp3 for the track on their homepage. The mp3 is zipped up into a 1.2MB file: Download

Enjoy!