Elmore Leonard. Dude was a massive influence on popular culture. He was instrumental in teaching Tarantino how to be Tarantino. He wrote the books that SO MANY great movies and television shows were based on.

Hunter Thompson. His gonzo style is often imitated but rarely duplicated. And it’s such a goddamn simple concept, but no one else managed to do it with his flair.

Disney released an animated movie a couple years ago called Strange World. It was a wildly mediocre movie with a plot that had a very obvious pro-environment, message that was subtle as a brick.

But what really ruffled the conservative feathers was son character who had a gay crush. For as preachy ad the rest of the movie was, the gay crush subplot was amazingly well done. They treated it like any other hetero love interest subplot. It wasn’t preachy or hamfisted or campy… it was just a family being happy for the kid.

As the defacto Excel guy in my office… I’m sorry. Also, I’m kind of proud of what I managed to accomplish.

That reminds me of The Venture Bros. There’s a villain called White Noise who is basically anthropomorphic television static in a humanoid shape.

He was a white supremacist television repair man before his “accident”.

The writing on that show was so goddamn sharp.

That’s what I did when I didn’t have physical access to the network where I was living. My little Asus that I flashed with Tomato saved my sanity.

Yeah. I’ve had a couple of their little travel routers which are a lot of fun. But apparently you can’t flash custom builds on one of their more recent models.

What were your must have packages?

Just one word: plastics.

I love my job and hate capitalism. Where do I fit in?

You’re casually blowing off two of the main reasons why I still have to use Windows.

Is there a Linux alternative to Excel that will allow me to reliably write and execute VBA macros that I can then deploy to my windows using co-workers?

Is there a Linux alternative to Photoshop? Doesn’t even need to be the most current version. I’d be happy with something that is functionally comparable to Photoshop 7.

I’m not being glib with those questions either. It’s been probably ten years since I’ve really used Linux. If there are legitimate alternatives I’d absolutely give it another go.

Put on Bluey.

Coolest thing my boss ever said was in response to the absolute worst customer I’d ever personally dealt with:

“I’m extremely sorry we failed to meet your expectations. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with one of our competitors in the future.”

I ain’t goin’ to Goa.

Some folk’ll never lose a toe, but then again some folk’ll…

No dude, it’s a math joke. MATH.

I used to love my job. I ran movie theaters. Not only was I good at it, I felt a great deal of personal satisfaction. I had fun going in to work. Then I got something I love more: a wife and kids. Movie theaters didn’t pay the bills, and it required too many nights, weekends and holidays. If I wanted to make more money and spend more time with my family, I needed to find a respectable 9-5. It took me another 5 years of bouncing around jobs to find one that, while I don’t love it it’s not a job that makes me want to drive off a cliff.

My kids are getting old enough that, if theaters started offering respectable living wages for adults with families, I’d go back to the industry in a heartbeat.

KWGT and KLWP. Worth every penny to skin your home screen to your exact desires. It’s basically like adding several layers of extra functionality to your launcher with custom coding and some surprisingly great GUI tools. I’ve seen people do some insane shit. Throw in Tasker and you got a stew going!