Year: 2010

Merry Christmas.

I drove across the country to see your mother in 1992. She said she liked this band called The Posies, so I bought an album and packed it along with 100 or so other CDs of mine for the trip. The only thing that varies between McDonalds in this land is the price of Coca…

Hello My Babies!! I still miss you. I wrote this Flash game called Poker GUTS! http://www.winett.com/PokerGuts/ I’m working on a Facebook integration for it now so people can use their Facebook login to save their scores and interact with each other. I love you!!

Hi, kids!! I don’t know if this will still be up when you find my blog, but I’ve been working in Adobe Flex on a project I’m calling ClickyTwisty. ClickyTwisty uses a set of rotating widgets to draw shapes on the screen.  It’s mesmerizing, I think. The link to the site is http://www.winett.com/ClickyTwisty/1 I miss…

Kids, I love you. You need to know that in my early twenties my appendix was surgically removed. Just before they removed my appendix, a doctor poked it with his index finger, causing me to experience a sharp, searing pain.  The pain was so sudden and so strong that, for just a moment, I was…

Babies, I feel hopelessness most of the time.  I am so far under, I am usually sure I’ll never make it back to the surface.  Any period of time I don’t feel this way is due to distraction. I don’t blame the world, or circumstances, or luck, or the devil, I blame myself.  Things are…

אלוהים גדול. God is Great. الله أكبر. Ok, so the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims all think God is great and they all think He is the same God as in the stories of Moses, Noah, and Abraham.  To me, that makes the current dust-up more about power on Earth than in heaven.

Kids, Many people will love you, but none of them can give you love. The love you feel, you made. You can choose to love whatever, so choose to love everything. I want to quit writing things to entertain myself, or teach myself, or show someone I did something, or was something, or want to…

I won’t be writing anything publicly for a long while. My babies, I love you.  A little DNA can go a long way.

Happy Birthday, Baby J. I LOVE YOU  I hope you’re having fun today and that everyday to come will be a good one.  I hope you have a positive mental attitude that will carry you through the rough days and that you’re able to find the silver lining. 14 years. My happiest days ever are…

In her latest book, Sarah Palin revealed her admiration for Simon Cowell, writing that Cowell is “almost alone in his willingness to tell hard truths” to bad singers. “No one they’ve encountered in their lives – from their parents to their teachers to their president – wanted them to feel bad by hearing the truth.…

There is no such thing as a free-market for medicine.On principle, I do believe in open capitalism and competition for the best ideas, the payoff being financial reward.  However, there is no such thing as a free market in the medical industry.  The power of the transaction is unfairly on the side of the provider…

Screenshot of Westburo Baptist Church’s Websitehttp://www.GodHatesFags.com I’m not really sure I should bother writing about this because I might be helping Pastor Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS spread his message. On second thought, the more his message is spread the more damage he does to his own cause, so let’s light…

China leads in the battle to build the most super supercomputers. Being an American geek, I have to say this is just wrong.  Oh, I’m all for the global village when it comes to grapes, alternative fuels, porn, and cool little phones, but the country that created the WOPR simply must always be on top when…

Image (c) CERN – Click here for more What happens when you smash lead ions into each other at really high speeds? You get fireballs of quark-gluon plasma at 10 trillion °C acting like a perfect liquid instead of a gas. This is the highest temp ever in an experiment and the fireballs were described…

This article on the CNN website, “‘Enter birthdate’ not the Fort Knox of online child locks,” has a lot of unnecessary words which boil down to this: The method of keeping kids out of adult information sources on the Internet is baloney.  What’s your birthday? Do you agree to these terms? The online age thing is…

I love to sign up for these things and read what they have to say.  This one is pretty funny. These are images taken from my browser window.  All of this appeared on the same page, in this order.  I’m skipping the boring parts. I can hardly wait!! Yep.  This is a good sign entertainment…

See the previous posting (new window):AdWords: Is Google Telling the Truth? The problem is even worse with AdSense. AdSense is the program a website owner can use to make money by providing advertising space to Google and their partners. Google handles an auction for your space and you get a percentage of the take. It…

Google AdWords is the program an advertiser uses to buy ad space on Google search and a number of partner sites. The advertiser bids the maximum they’re willing to pay for a click. Every time a search runs, an auction takes place.  If there are three display slots, then  Google selects the top three maximum bids.…

Oh, the nightmare I had.  I reached up to turn on the lamp, but the switch kept turning and the light did not come on.  Their words were still repeating in my head.  Then I remembered I don’t have a lamp. I hate nightmares.

I hate Halloween. I hate Thanksgiving. I hate Christmas. Right. Oh, hate is a strong word.

The most popular post on this blog right now is I’m Done Whining [August 24, 2010] – by far. The reason? If you search for “raining” on Google Images, it’s the seventh displayed out of more than 4 million results. If you click on Similar or More Sizes in the Google Images search results, you’ll…

This is what I call a “sales letter” website. I’ve seen dozens of these selling all sorts of things from dating advice to kitchen appliances. The very first one I found was selling information on how to sell things on the Internet by creating sites like these.  Of course, the guy could hook you up…

You know, it used to be that your stuff was basically secure because the number of people who understood the underlying systems and knew how to write software well enough to truly be “hackers” was pretty small. Today, I think that number is still relatively small, but the Internet can be used to distribute their…

The .co domain is a really silly idea, except if you make money on domain registrations. Here’s the idea: You can now get a name you’ve always wanted but couldn’t get because it was gone from the .com top-level domain. Why do you need a particular domain name?  For advertising, I assume.  I’m guessing you…

As you might have noticed, numbers are very important to some crazy people.  Since people have noticed this ratio in nature and deemed it “Golden” then as an homage to my formerly crazy self, I’m going to remind you that I was born on June 18th at the center of the universe which is firmly…

Kids in the Hall did this on television… from Canada I think.Somehow Canadians appear on television in the United Statesfrom time to time thanks to the magic of theCanadian Electromagnetic Comedy Dissemination SystemI don’t actually recognize this guy.I did see Kids in the Hall perform a stage show in Houstonsome years ago.  It was one of…

In this New Scientist article a program in Japan testing a little kids monitoring device hooks up kids so that their parents can see what their children are seeing. “The technology builds on existing devices that can track the location of a child, but this gadget also monitors what the child is seeing, and even their…

Heck, just visit this page and check out how Twitter talks about jobs at Twitter. Click here.  I dare you.  (new window) Ok, I’m not going to try to get a job anywhere.  It seems weird and twisted and probably truly screwed up (if you’re related to me) and my excuse for all this nonsense…

Trish died earlier this year.  One of her family members wrote this tribute to her. Rest in peace, Mrs.!!!  You really always did have a positive attitude going.  My mom did, too. Trish was a avid reader. She liked all kinds of books, and loved poetry. One of her favorite poems was How Did You…

I’m still telling your jokes. In the past couple of years, I’ve started saying Riboflavin is my favorite word. You’re the closest thing to a Muppet humanity has ever grown. That’s a compliment, I think. You can’t give something you don’t have and you can’t have something you don’t give.  I’m really, really trapped by…

If you’re a pitcher who can throw a 90mph fastball and you find yourself in space standing on top of a ship travelling 100mph and you throw a fastball ahead of the ship… then that ball would be leaving you at 90mph relative to you, but someone watching from a distance would see the ball…

I’m not cut out for this. Oct 24, 10: I figured out that suicide for me is about control.  There’s very little that I feel I can control.  I’m not in control of my feelings, my actions, my mission, my needs, my wants, or my will.  Most people exert no control over when they die…

I miss you. It’s getting harder and harder to cheer myself up, but this helps. I’m sorry if we don’t see each other again.

John Cusack as Lane Meyer in Better Off Dead (1985) I graduated from high school in 1986.  If you don’t remember 1986 because you were young, unborn, or in a coma, then you could see Hot Tub Time Machine for an exaggerated version of the time complete with hair and clothing styles and jokes about…

Screen capture of animation at http://joedesktop.com joeDesktop is a software product and associated online service I’ve been planning for a while.  The desktop software will most likely be done for Adobe AIR. I have been planning on learning to use jQuery for a while now though so I decided to do something today on this…

Box from: Wikipedia about LEDs OLED technology is going to completely change our lives. LEDs are little lights.  The light is emitted because electrons try to jump across a semiconductor… they try because the semiconductor has holes for them.  When the electron gets there, a photon of light is released. Electrons are all about potential.  They’ll…

Yvonne Strahovski as Sarah Walker Chuck is a television series appearing on NBC. You can see episodes here on NBC.com. Here are the reasons geeks watch Chuck. (1) Chuck is a geek.(2) Yvonne Strahovski has a license to kill.(3) Chuck becomes a spy.(4) Yvonne Strahovski carries two weapons at all times.(5) Chuck gets to hang out…

This guy who’s a Muslim finds out he’s adopted.  He tracks down his birth records and it turns out he was born a Jew.  Then he finds out that his father is still alive, but he’s dying and the rabbi attending his father will not let him in the room because, he says, the old…

John Lennon seemed so old in 1980 — the big 4 0.

Plop down two little American brothers to crunch up some things with rocks and this interchange would probably be the same.  We’re all the same, but others convince us we’re of different worth. It makes sense to help your neighbor.  I agree, your neighbor usually lives right next to you. In America, even the poorest…

Nelson Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in prison in thiscell on Robben Island where mainly political prisoners were forcedto spend their days breaking rocks in the hot sun. On the day of his release, Mandela called for peace andreconciliation with the white minority of South Africa. Out of the night that…

This is three and a half minutes of a 12-way video chat (used without permission). I started recording this because the keyboard guy was doing such a good job. I don’t know why some people like to broadcast themselves playing video games, or just sitting there staring at a screen.  I guess it’s kind of…

Ah yes, the Chuck Eye Steak. #2 taught me how to eat well with little money. The chuck eye is a steak cut from the chuck eye roast.  I don’t know what that means, but it’s good steak for around $4.99/lb. I’m enjoying one right now. Victory today: New company collected it’s first check. [Update…

We’ll start with a funny Mark Barbee moment. We were playing pinball in a biker bar in Tulsa.  Some guy was waiting.  When the game was over, Mark put another quarter in the machine.  The guy voiced his discontent.  Mark voiced his lack of concern in a humorous way. The guy opened his jacket to…

Bhopal Child Victim In the United States, a corporation is a person. A person in the United States is basically free of regulation.  He doesn’t have a government agency watching him as he leaves his home.  He doesn’t have to file a plan for lunch.  He doesn’t have to get approval to get his freak…

This is a clip from the movie, Twelve.

I stole this paragraph from FoxxySheist… not just because of her appearance:        2000 words written today and I felt as though I’d done enough to stop then I was stopped dead in my tracks by a fabulous writer friend of mine who sent me an email reminding me of all the reasons why…

You remember that morning, the melody?  As usual, they pour out of you when you listen.  You try not to hear, but it’s everywhere.  No matter the tempo, the words are there.  No matter the words, you hear the notes. A simple idea.  It wasn’t crazy.  See the your future, then walk to it.  If…

The web desperately needs a way for people to send very small amounts of money to people.  This whole idea that you should give away everything is toxic.  If you could pay a cent or even a fraction of a cent to use someone’s content, wouldn’t you feel great knowing you’re helping them pay for something…

Flash is still amazingly underutilitized on the web.  Yes, I said it. Flash is generally not used as an interface tool because people are concerned about SEO and accessibility from mobile devices. You’re missing the whole market of people who will pay money to make their stuff look cool who are only attracting a few…

It’s not supposed to be a conversation tool, but the Twitter-snobs can bite me.  The fact is that lots of conversations take place on Twitter. Here: Do a Twitter client that keeps caches off everything on the timeline to quickly display the timeline in a format that makes it easy to follow the threading. Put…

In the last posting, Video Commentary via Audio or Annotation, I brought up the idea of allowing people to add commentary and annotations to videos streamed over the Internet on a service like YouTube, but way better. We all know someone who knows everything about their favorite movies.  It’s fun, sometimes, to watch a movie with…

Create a service by which people can add commentary to videos.  Their commentary can be applied as annotations in text, directly on the screen, or as audio mixed with the soundtrack. You’re going to need something that works like Flash Media Server, or Wowza, for this. The service should allow people to choose who’s commentary…

There was an “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon” (UAP) hovering over a United Airlines gate at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on November 7th, 2006.  The aviation guys do not refer to these things as UFO’s, they’re UAP’s. Lots of United Airlines people saw it, including pilots. There are no pictures. There’s an organization called the National Aviation…

Here’s a great business idea for you: Create a tool on the web which people can use to create fake fame to tease a friend. Here’s how it works: A prankster visits the site, chooses some options, and pays some money. Then they upload a video and still images of their friend (or themselves). Then…

Earlier this year, I decided that I should just dump all my business ideas here. Since thinking up ideas seems to be enough for me, it makes sense that I should pass them on to others so that they can money with them.  Part of the delusion is that people who make money with my…

I’m convinced that the purpose of dreaming is to audition things that might be approved for reality in the “real world.”  Of course, 99.999% of what happens in dreams will never see the “light of day” in this “universe.” I think it’s also a lesson to us, teaching what would happen if we were turned…

The people who are first to enter into business in a new industry are generally in the best position to profit from it. If you knew people who knew something about the cemetery industry and you knew people who knew people in your state government and you knew people who knew something about information technology…

Whatever Works is my new favorite movie. This is a big deal.  Previous favorite movies: Star Wars, Raising Arizona, and then The Matrix. I thought I would hang on to The Matrix forever, and I’m sure some people who know me personally will be happy to read that I’ve let it slip to the #2…

Today I attended a Mexican-American wedding at the local Catholic church in Shawnee.  The ceremony was in Spanish, but what I gathered is that the couple was married, as witnessed by the congregation, and sanctified by God. There was some standing up, there was some group-talk in Spanish, and there was some sitting down. El…

Roofer On Fire: On A Serious Note : Glenn Beck and Goldline: “Article first published as All That Does Not Glitter is Gold on Blogcritics Folks around the blogosphere rip apart Glenn Beck because the…”

Johnathan Wendel aka Fatal1ty is the self-proclaimed number one gamer in the world. At one time, many people definitely would have agreed.  Now some people dispute that there is a real way to determine who’s number one.  His Wikipedia article shows him winning 5 world championships. When Quake 3 Arena came out in 1999, I was…

The Original Roofer on Fire is a great blog with many more readers than this one THAT MENTIONED ME!!!  OMG. Joe’s Version Here’s the posting. Of course, I had to notice that the fire on the right margin on the blog page looks like a woman’s body. You should check out her blog. Oh, this…

If you own the rights to this image, please contact me.No, I don’t make any money, sorry.I’m curious about your feelings. Ok, I’ve been afraid of failure. This morning it’s raining in Shawnee. The image of rain in lyrics is often used to evoke images of sadness and despair, but actually we have rain to…

Ok, Jesus died for our sins…  Awesome. Wouldn’t it have made more sense if he had to burn in hell for all eternity at some intensity multiplied by the number of souls expected to ever end up in Hell? Ok, well, I suppose that his sacrifice is worth more than our sacrifice because he’s the…

The idea the Jesus is the only way is a dangerous one. Jesus is an almost perfect representation of God, except for the fact that the people who brought you Jesus tried to make it an exclusive club.  Ok, that might not make sense.  You’re thinking: Joe, it’s not exclusive… anyone who accepts Jesus can…

I miss you so much, it hurts.  I don’t want to miss you anymore, but I can’t see you. I really don’t understand why verbal messages aren’t passed back and forth… why I don’t hear any news about you. I’m thinking it’s because I’ve been effectively eliminated from your lives and minds in order to…

Did you read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Did you read all of Vonnegut’s stuff? I’ve actually read more fiction than these guys but I always come back to them. Little Man, your sister and I read the Narnia books and the Wizard of Oz books and the lots of other books.  You should make some…

Is John Lennon chewing gum?? I’ve thought about this song quite a bit recently. It’s a nice thought that love is all you need. What does he mean that you can’t sing a song that can’t be sung? Nothing you can see that isn’t shown? Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you were mean…

It doesn’t matter if you achieve everything or nothing when you’re alone. People try to tell you that God is always with you, so you’re never alone, God is always watching, hopefully you’re always fearing. This “God Fearing” bullshit is really scary.  People who believe in Old Testament wrath, but claim to be Christians, are…

Until you have absolutely no money, you cannot imagine the true value of having money. I don’t know when you’re reading this, but when you’re a kid you might understand the value of your money.  You don’t understand the value of your parents’ money. Baby J and Little Man, when your mom and I split…

What I said about my mother beating and terrorizing me when I was little was true, but that wasn’t my mother. No, she wasn’t possessed. People change. She changed. She was never very warm to me.  In fact, the first time I can remember her hugging me since I was a teen ager was after…

These are some funny AT&T pictures, Babies. See, this is an AT&T security guard. I’ve made fun of AT&T because they’re Southwestern Bell and Southwestern Bell was kind of mean to me, like they were to anyone trying to compete with them, when I tried to start a CLEC. They were mildly mean.  I think…

Little Man, this picture makes me smile. Ok, this picture also freaks me out because Baby J is five feet tall there… nearly anyway. But it makes me smile because you and your sister are doing the same thing. This picture on the left was lifted from LuAnne’s Facebook profile. Look at all the smiles.…

Love is an imprecise word.  We use it all the time to different degrees and so, it has been said, the word is useless. Some would say that the vague nature of the word Love is what makes it so useful. “Oh, I love you,” said a certain way can be easy for one person…

People who act solely by what they think seem cold to me, but I have to admit they appear to be more successful in life than people who act solely on what they feel. Regardless of what people tell you, you are the only one who decides what you feel, so actually you are always…

That last post sucked. I thought what I wanted to do was to try to satisfy potential curiosity in you.  If you weren’t curious, you wouldn’t be reading this. But, it looks like I’m more likely to say what I want for whatever other reasons. Perhaps what people have told you about me is good…

Since no one but my babies is supposed to read this, then you must be one of my babies.  Thank God, you finally found this blog. Which baby are you? Little Man, you were only four when I saw you last.  You were nine when I wrote this. Baby J, you had just turned nine.…

The domain name service for the blog has been switched back to blogspot.com, so the search feature might not work for some time, while Google catches up to the change. This is the last posting that will be announced to Facebook and Twitter.  I’m removing the Networked Blogs thing in Facebook that has been handling…

When your new friend is being attacked by a racially and sexually diverse assassination squad, you’re going to need to know a few tricks to turn your scanning hobby into a survival skill. First: Always dress for scanning success.  Only your left glove is required, but you’re going to need a scarf and a matching…

I very rarely dream about you, but this morning I dreamed about you for the second night in a row.  You were laughing at a joke I made about some stuffed animals.  I had forgotten how nice it was to hear you laugh. For when you’re lonely; For when you’re tired; For when you’re sick;…

This Sailor is Navy Petty Officer, PO2 (Petty Officer, Second Class) EOD2 (Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Second Class), MIKE MONSOOR April 5th, 1981 ~ September 29th, 2009  Mike Monsoor was awarded “The Congressional Medal Of Honor” in April, 2008, for giving his life in Iraq in 2006, when he jumped on, and covered with his body, a live hand grenade, saving…

Back when I was a kid, one million dollars was a lot of money. I saw an interview with Jim Carrey a while back where he said when he was just starting out in show business that he wrote himself a one million dollar check and pledged that one day it would be good. When…

Deer will sometimes freeze when caught in headlights. Sometimes people will also freeze in fear. Sometimes people can get so depressed about what they think is coming, impending doom or whatnot, that they just freeze. Sometimes people hope for a quicker resolution, even bad, because the waiting isn’t much fun. Why doesn’t the deer run…

Apparently Motorola has my email address because they sent me an ad last night for this DROID2 phone which runs the Android 2.2 operating system. This is pretty funny because I can’t actually afford things like cell phones or internet service or food.  But, Motorola doesn’t know that. A man who can afford cell phones,…

I’m convinced that some movies are made badly on purpose, like Ice Twisters. Here’s the IMDB page. I’m a computer programmer, by all measures a failure at that, and yet I know I could have saved this screenplay by just editing down the nonsense. Imagine that weird ice twisters are breaking out in a three…

You found my blog.  Excellent. I’m flattered you bothered to look me up. When you read what I’ve written here, you’ll come to the following conclusion: I am just the person you’ve been looking for, crazy enough to make that little technology problem/opportunity you have stand up and get in line. I believe in complete…

Most of the images I use on this blog are stolen from other sites on the Internet and used without permission. When I looked for an image for this posting, I used Google’s image search on these keywords: gambling slots. It’s funny that one of the images that came up was on an article titled,…

Surely there’s something I can do for my country as an agent for the government, representing the people of the United States, in some secret mission abroad, perhaps risking my life and/or my testicles, in order to advance the cause of freedom and/or the economic dominance of my Zionist masters. My resume: I speak English fluently…

Music by Elton JohnLyrics by Bernie TaupinAvailable on the album Honky Château She packed my bags last night pre-flightZero hour nine a.m.And I’m gonna be high as a kite by thenI miss the earth so much I miss my wifeIt’s lonely out in spaceOn such a timeless flight And I think it’s gonna be a…

Ok, I said there was nothing I wanted, but there are some things that I said I wanted in the past.  I guess I still want these: (1) My daughter and I dreamed about buying some land near a neighborhood in Tulsa that needed a park, building a park, and donating it to the city.…

Folks, I’m just being dramatic and expressing how I feel, but I am not going to kill myself.  It’s looking like I’m going to be homeless, but I’m not going to kill myself.  I don’t think I can be homeless in Shawnee, though.  And I’m not really excited about going to Tulsa — I’m not…

You saw the number thing as being reduced to a number… it was actually a compliment.  Perhaps you have had dozens and dozens of relationships, but I’ve had 4. Look at all that has happened recently.  Having me around was just making everything worse for you as I was distracting you from the things you…

This is just like 2008 when I knew I was going to be homeless with the exception that at that time I had never been homeless and didn’t know just how much it was going to suck. Oh sure, there was some fear of the unknown, but when you’re talking about the unknown you can…

And now people have tried to get the police involved.  Thanks.  I suppose you can now feel as though you’ve tried to do something to “help” me.  That’s good. You’ll notice that I’m not in the mental slammer. I was able to buy a cigarette for $0.50.  That was good. I spent my last $0.27…