Gradin.com » meme

Why my hip-hop posse would include Johnny 5

Olaf — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:14:06 +0000

Johnny 5
The founder of the Flobots, Johnny 5 builds a repertoire of songs that have a voice communicated through masked patriotism for a nation we do not know. I don’t do lyrics, so I’d need someone to help put together some potent rap-styled slander.

Zack de la Rocha
A current collaborating member, Zack de la Rocha, of One Day as a Lion. Zack has a well-known history of anger-infused music enraged by kick-your-pathetic-ass rock. Zack can excite things while still maintaining the credibility of legitimate hatred.

Justin Timberlake
To balance out the party, Justin Timberlake can hang with us. This dude lives a life of fame and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Timberlake is good for comix relief while still cranking out albums that, while not necessarily my demographic, continue to amass the fans.

Top 5: Things You Wanted to Know About Me

Olaf — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:41:50 +0000

The meme is apparently now a lost word; used only by uncool dads and hipless (as in the lack of being hip) half-wits. I’m getting on in years, relatively speaking, and am inclined to use such lingo as to embarrass those who would be so easily offended.

For lack of better alternatives, I bring to you the current meme on my plate. Young whipper-snappers may be unfamiliar with this word, but it is essentially an Internet chain-letter. Spazzmanda passed this on to me from her blog, where she refers to such activities as “tagging.” I always thought that was a cultural art of defacement by way of graffiti, but what does an old fart like me know.

The Rules: Rules are posted at the beginning. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their names. Then the player goes to each of the “named” people’s blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. If you’ve been tagged, you do the same, letting the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer. Your answer, of course, is the answer to the following questions. Here we go!

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? One decade ago I was two months from my 2nd wedding anniversary with my lovely wife, Amy. We had no children, though we had pets. We were in our first year at our first house together (and current house). Amy was still in school at North Georgia College and State University (though it may not have been a State University at the time), and I was working for…Whittman-Hart, perhaps. I was a consultant beginning to cut my teeth on information systems security. It would be my primary job and objective for the next several years. I registered gradin.com for the first time – it was a standard 2-year registration and cost me $70.00 (I think my last registration was $8.95 for a year). I was finally able to access my awesome Mindspring account web space using my rocking X2 US Robotics Sportster (externel) modem via www.gradin.com. I was working in Allaire’s Cold Fusion, though I couldn’t afford a license for the server to host my own site using their technology. I used Allaire’s Homesite as my primary editor with Photoshop and Fractal Painter as my graphics packages. I think I was trying to get onto Bellsouth’s xDSL beta program, but with no luck due to my distance from the carrier. I was, however, involved with Wachovia’s beta online account access. It was a glorified BBS – awesome!

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today? I’ve got ESX hosts to convert to 3.5i, installable. SAN storage to attach, and VMs to migrate both through traditional migrations, as well as the new and improved Storage VMotion. I also have some process proposal documentation to get done for the collected efforts of the Norcross lab engineering team, as well as that of our Hillsboro office. I hope to get some ping-pong in at lunch, ride my bike 10 miles back to my car, and then facilitate a drum circle for 100 people in northeast Georgia with some friends.

3. Snacks I enjoy: Have you tried my nuts? They’re salty and dimensionally variant. I enjoy the texture especially, though others are just happy I am able to share – there’s more than enough for everyone to enjoy! I also like beef jerky and granola bars.

4. Places I’ve lived: I’ve had a good spread in my life, though as of late my homestead has been very static. I began in Ocean Springs, MI; moved to Plano, TX, and then jumped to San Diego, CA shortly thereafter. We moved a couple of times there, but finally moved out the state to Tuscon, AZ. From there, we departed for Waycross, GA, and then onto Gainesville, GA where I live now. I’ve moved several times throughout both of these places in Georgia, and I’ve been here the longest amount of time so far.

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: This is actually the title of a post I’ve been working on for a while now. It’s a recurring theme throughout our decade+ of marriage, and one that will most likely continue to develop and mature in time. The most boring thing I think of from our list is to pay-off debt and acquire some commercial real estate to lease. There’s money accumulation prospects in that, so we would do well to set ourselves for the inevitable loss of said billions through the frivolous purchases from our list. There are two more intriguing opportunities: 1) Develop a waterfront district on Lake Lanier – a boardwalk with shops and dining – that aids in the lake’s restoration efforts, as well as providing some awareness about the lake’s ecosystem. 2) Convert an old mill on the outskirts of town into a turn-of-the-century arts and crafts guild. History tells us that these guilds are mere congregations of passionate people in the arts and crafts and generally have no ability to sustain themselves financially.

5 “Tagged”

57% Chance of Surviving a Zombie Attack

Olaf — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:24:42 +0000

57%

It’s not particularly good, though not all together bad either. I think the quiz is rigged. It never asked me how good I was with knives.

Thanks for the meme, Spazz.

Meet a New Book Every Day

Olaf — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:26:00 +0000

Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your entry along with these instructions.
Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

“Range patterns match from the first occurence of one pattern to the first occurence of the second pattern, then match for the next occurence of the first pattern to the next occurence of the second pattern, etc.”
– Ellie Quiqley, UNIX Shells by Example

This idea was brought to you by firetie, Navid Azimi, and Sean.

If you happen to continue this meme into the blogosphere, try and continue the link references so everyone gets a copy of your quote in a Trackback Ping.

MadLib Biographies: Longhand

Olaf — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 14:30:37 +0000

This morning, I opened a letter from my mom – snail mail, not email. It’s unusual to get personal letters when there are no holidays or birthdays in sight, so I was a little apprehensive of this one. As I unfolded the sheets of paper from the envelop, I could see that what I had was a print out of a page from my site with my mom’s handwriting on them. I then feared that she had stumbled across something grossly incorrect or offensive and she couldn’t bring herself to do anything other than print it out and scrawl her dissappointments upon it. As it turns out, the page was from a chain letter meme-thingy I posted a while back. Rather than posting a comment with the answers, my mother printed the page out and proceeded to write her answers on it. She then mailed it to me for my enjoyment. I haven’t even read it yet, but I will as soon as I get over the bizarro-world reality that it is. What this tells me is that my mom, while able to see my site from work, was not able to post comments. I know she can’t contribute to the blog from there – they have a block on the blogger.com site that services this site. Perhaps they’re blocking haloscan.com as well! What a conspiracy. The hospital, Northeast Georgia Medical Center, is apparently concerned with their public image, though not enough to actually do anything about it. They just don’t want their employees talking about them. And they can’t do that if you block them from blogging services. Ha!

Greetings from A Far Away Land

Olaf — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 20:59:45 +0000

It’s sort of funny – that me and nahnu.org have sort of a meme on this. If you read the post from my birthday, you’ll know I randomly wished people “Happy Birthday” in the blogosphere on my birthday. It turns out that it was very rewarding, socially speaking. I made some people’s days, and got this broken conversation going between here and nahnu.org. Not that it’s anything ground breaking, it’s just that that site is entirely in Turkish. That’s not even in my list of languages to learn, let alone one I already know a handful of words from. I know, maybe, two words in Turkish, and they relate to my drumming. Not particularly useful in conversation. I’ve learned a thing or two about a couple of additional words, though I don’t know of how certain I am about their meaning, nor their context. At any rate, I find it really cool to have a name I can call on when in need of some assistance in all things Turkish.

MadLib Biographies

Olaf — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 03:49:10 +0000

My friend, Jason D., sent me a chain-letter to fill out and send to a million people for good luck or something. I am against such things, but I like Jason and wish to at least better his luck. Instead of emailing everyone with my MadLib biography, I chose to post it here on my blog instead. I hope both of my readers enjoy this and are inspired to meme it themselves.

What is your full name on birth certificate? Olaf Gradin
What color pants are you wearing now? blue (denim)
What are you listening to right no? The sound of a computer fan and the distant drier
Favorite music? Sad or reminescent tunes
What was the last thing you ate? Zaxby’s Kickin’ Chicken Basket and fried mushrooms
Favorite food? Scandinavian split-pea soup
If you were a crayon what color would you be? Yellow
What is your favorite color? Yellow, but that has nothing to do with the previous question
How is the weather right now? Cool and foggy
If you could be anywhere, where would you be? Titan
Where would you most want to travel? Space, but I’ll take Sweden
What has been your favorite vacation? Alaska
Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Jason D., though *technically* we text’d
Talk on the phone, write letter, or email? Email
The first thing you notice about people? Ethnicity
Feature on others you most look at? Skin
What is your best feature? Height
Do you like the person who sent this to you? Even when he sends me chain letters
What has been your most memorable moment with friends? 7th grade
How are you today? Recovering from an illness…still
What is your favorite day of the week? Any day but Monday
Favorite Drink? Coffee
Favorite alcoholic drink? NyQuil
Activity you most enjoy on the weekends? Woodwork
Favorite sport to watch? Martial arts and gymnastics, though I rarely see either except in the Olympics
Favorite sport to play? Racquetball
Hair color? Strawberry-Blonde
Siblings? Henning Gradin, deceased
First Car? Toyota Tercel (hatchback)
Car you would most like to have? Nissan Frontier
Favorite month(s)? September-October
Last movie you watched, all the way through? Dodgeball
Favoite movie? I’m sure I don’t know, but Stargate comes to mind
Are you too shy to ask someone out? I’ve been married for eight years; I don’t remember
Summer or Winter? Winter
Rain or snow? Snow
Hugs or Kisses? Hugs
Chocolate or Vanilla? Vanilla
Do you want your friends to write back? I want my friends to comment
Who is most likely to respond? Sean W.
Who is least likely to respond? Everyone else
Living arrangements? Starter home with wife and child
Living arrangement you would like most? Custom timber-frame home on a nice plot of land – with Amy and Balthazar too, of course
What books are you reading? More Eric Meyer on CSS
Favoite book? Dune
What did you do last night? Ate dinner at home with the family – an unusual treat
What inspires you? Problems
Favorite cookie? Snickerdoodles, remember them?
Favoite treat? Fried cheesecake

Bathroom Etiquette

Olaf — Thu, 09 Sep 2004 23:13:07 +0000

This should probably be a meme if it isn’t already (note to self…). I have a list of things I would like to post in regards to bathroom etiquette. Please follow these simple guidelines when in my presence.

*Do NOT* talk to me whilst I piddle or poo. Talking to me during a piddle is overseeable, but never the poo.
Don’t expect me to answer the phone whilst engaged in the acts aforementioned. In fact, I probably won’t answer the phone until I have cleared the bathroom sector.
Try and contain your gaseous expulsions when others are within tremor’s distance. It makes me laugh and that will probably only embarrass you.
If you have (or think you may get) diarrhea, *do NOT* come to work and use the facilities. Stay home and spread your E. coli upon toothbrushes if you wish.
For Pete’s sake, wash your hands…preferrably with soap. The quick dip and splash in running water doesn’t really count.
“If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be discreet and wipe it up!”
Don’t leave floaters – if flushing won’t sink your battleship, bring an egg beater and whip it…whip it good!
Again with the talking…there’s really no reason to be talking excessively in the bathroom. It’s echoey and I have a tendancy to have performance anxiety with so much activity buzzing around.
The Shake: more than a couple of shakes and I’m going to assume your *using* the bathroom. Also, don’t be so rough over there – I don’t need to hear the thwacking sounds of your flesh weasel.
Don’t leave nasty things at or around the urinal cake. It’s repulsive and I don’t need anything further to increase my splatter variability.
Don’t leave things at or around the seat in stalls. I don’t really want to touch anything more than I have to in there – I’m inclined to flush with my foot as it is.

And in case you’re looking for information on *how* to take care of this business, check here.