Chipotle Chickenpasta Marinara

As I was cooking dinner, I decided to play around with the Voice Memos app on my iPhone. It turned into a podcast somehow. Please enjoy this window into my cooking habits in an inadequately stocked kitchen where I really have no idea what I'm doing. The resulting meal turned out pretty good. "Smokey, and rich, and oh-so-flavorful."

TEaL 01 (TEaL.mechnoch.net/Podcasts/091117ChipotleChickenpastaMarinara.mp3)

Background music by Nine Inch Nails. 03 Ghosts 01 http://nin.com

The Future's So Bright...

It's simply amazing how much has happened in my life recently. I had another bipolar episode. I'm getting a divorce. I met a girl through an innovative iPhone app. And I'm finally moving back into my apartment this week.

As far as these events could have gone, I'm holding up surprisingly well. No small thanks goes out to my friends and family that stood by me through this ordeal. And if this is the first you've heard about this, please know that the reason is that I did not want to cause you undue stress while I sorted things out. Things are mostly sorted now, and I'm ready to resume my life again. This is Sage v2.0.1. More of the features you love, fewer distractions.

As soon as the apartment is mostly redecorated, I'm throwing a massive housewarming party. You're all invited!

In the immortal words of Andrew W.K.
#PARTYHARD

Blast from the Past

I've decided to repost some of my Myspace blogs from about a year ago, since no one uses Myspace anymore, and will never ever see them again. Please enjoy this blast from the past:

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Payson High School, Class of 2001 Current mood: awake Category: Quiz/Survey Did you marry someone from your high school? Yes, in fact. We both went our separate ways for about two years before deciding we could no longer live without each other, though. Did you car pool to school? No. I drove about a mile and a half each day. Did you know you can drive through the streets of Payson in Google Street View? What kind of car did you have? RACKTER (199x Geo Tracker, silver) What kind of car do you have now? Addie drives ABE 2: (2005 Toyota Corolla S) Most of the time I just take Seattle Metro (New Flyer DE60LF, hybrid diesel-electric bus) It's Friday night...where were you? In Paul Dayton's attic, or Will Floyd's garage having a LAN party, or watching MST3K. It's Friday night..where are you now? Sitting at home watching Netflix. What kind of job did you have in high school? CompUSA: Hardware Sales Team member Were you a party animal? Wooo! Party! Pass me another Mountain Dew! ::headshot:: DAMMIT, GABE! This time, you're getting the REDEEMER. ::MONSTER KILL:: Were you considered a flirt? Far from it. Lucky for me, Addie flirted with me anyway. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? I quit orchestra in Jr High. I took drama for a while. I was part of PCN and the school newspaper. I took every single computer and electronics class that Payson offered. Did you get suspended/exepelled? Nope. Although they did pull me into the office one time after Columbine, because I owned a black trench coat. Can you sing the fight song? "Nothing suffocates you more than The passing of everyday human events Isolation is the oxygen mask you make Your children breathe in to survive" [...] "And when we were good, you just closed your eyes So when we are bad, we'll scar your mind Fight, fight, fight, fight" Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)? Mr. Strange, Mr. Alexander, Coach Hill, and of course Kevin Poulsen. Where did you sit during lunch? The commons, right next to the main office. What was your school's full name? Payson High School (check out the 1337.html) When did you graduate? 2001 What was your school mascot? Some sort of lion? If you could go back and do it again, would you? I thoroughly enjoyed high school, and I often miss my high school friends, but timetravel is his highly dangerous, and I wouldn't want to risk branching the timeline. What do you remember most about graduation? Paul Dayton (one of my best friends), and Marcie Twede (my first elementary-school crush) each giving Valedictorian speeches. Who did you take to prom Sr yr? Heidi Kroeber (aka Addie Lazenby), both her senior year and my senior year. Did you have fun at Prom? Oh yeah. Do you still talk to the person you went to Prom with? Well, seeing as how I live with her, it's kind of hard not to... Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Hell yes! (I didn't go to the 5 year reunion, and I regret it.) Do you still talk to people from school?? I still keep in fairly regular contact with current and former Utards, including: Jordan Atkin, Jeff Carter, Paul Dayton, Jake Waters, and of course, Addie. Currently listening: Fight Song By Marilyn Manson Release date: 2001-08-08

The DHS is Now Monitoring mechnoch.net

Throughout the day on 20090727, and throughout my Utah homecoming vacation, I had been twittering my plans and my travels. This included links to bus routes, Google Maps pinpointing my exact location, and photographs taken from my iPhone. I was microblogging my trip for the benefit of my friends in Utah so that they might rendezvous with me, for my friends back in Seattle, and also for my lovely wife, who had flown back to Seattle earlier due to the fact that she had recently switched employers and had not accrued as much vacation time.

Mechnoch is going to try to ride UTA to Provo and back today. Wish me luck.
http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2870426099
Mechnoch has a bus route http://ow.ly/ijbn
http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2873484024

Mechnoch just missed the dang bus. Nex one doesn't come for two hours!

http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2874647621
Mechnoch @jordan_atkin Unfortunately, I have been delayed. I'll let you know when I'm in your jurisdiction.
http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2875052129
Jordan_Atkin @mechnoch I may be out of my jurisdiction until a little later this afternoon, forgot i might need to head to payson myself.
http://twitter.com/jordan_atkin/status/2875095677
Mechnoch @jordan_atkin half the reason I was headed to Provo/Orem was to get a flash drive to steal NIN bootlegs from you.
http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2877198027
Mechnoch @jordan_atkin If you'll be in Payson in the next few hours, I might just wait and ride the bus back with you.
http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2875830984
Jordan_Atkin @mechnoch It is likely that I will take the 3:00 bus to payson and probably take the 5:15 bus back. I'll be down at the bus stop closest to-
http://twitter.com/jordan_atkin/status/2876090848
Jordan_Atkin @mechnoch ... the hostpital. So I'll probably be visible there around 5:00.
http://twitter.com/jordan_atkin/status/2876110569

Mechnoch is remixing @nineinchnails' The Good Soldier. My favorite track off Year Zero.
http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2878093800
Mechnoch @mechnoch "...and the bass goes *bomb*" holy shit this is sounding good.
http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2878730554
Mechnoch grabbed a Mountain Dew @ Little Caesars while I wait for the UTA 822 bus. http://yfrog.com/76dlkj
http://twitter.com/mechnoch/status/2879068485



I got on the bus in South Payson, and Jordan caught the bus at his designated stop. We spent the bus ride reminiscing about Payson High School, how much distain we each have for certain things about Utah, and the fact that a bus driver wouldn't let Jordan on the bus wearing his Obama shirt a week before (but that's a whole 'nother story).

At this point it would have been quite clear to anyone following us closely on Twitter that we're on the Payson/BYU Shuttle together, and will likely have to transfer buses at Brigham Young University to make it to Jordan's apartment.

I was suddenly aware that my phone was ringing (playing my custom The Good Soldier ringtone) with a Cedar City number that I didn't recognize, and it appeared that I had missed a call from the same number only moments before. I could not think of anyone I knew with a Cedar City number and was quite curious about why they were so persistent in calling.

I called the number back, but due to the excessively loud bus I had trouble hearing the person on the other end.
"[Unintelligible] has an urgent message for you," I could not make out their first words at all, so I asked them to speak up, because I was on the bus.

There was a long pause, as if the phone was being handed over. The bus was just pulling into our stop at BYU, and Jordan gestured to me that we should get off the bus now. Someone picked up on the other end, and started speaking very clearly and deliberately.

"THERE IS A BOMB ON THE BUS. IT WILL GO OFF IN 25 SECONDS. GET OFF THE BUS NOW."

I almost shat myself. Thoughts were racing through my head as to what the hell could be happening. Both Jordan and I were somewhat outcasts in our high school, and I believe were both questioned and monitored after the Columbine massacre to ensure that we weren't a threat. We had made a few enemies in high school, but until now I had never considered that coming back to haunt me. I remembered my trail of Twitter breadcrumbs, Jordan and my mutual public distain for Utah via Twitter. Coupled with the fact that we had just arrived at BYU campus, universally recognized symbol of Utah higher education, and shining star of the LDS Church and Mormons everywhere, I was convinced that this was real, and someone was framing Jordan and me for a terrorist attack on BYU.

"This is our stop. We're getting off the bus now," I said.
My heart was racing at this point, and as soon as the bus pulled away and the roar of its engines died down I asked frantically,
"Ok, who is this and what's going on!?"

"[Laughter] This is Bradley Crouch!"

Fear boiled away and flared into rage at the fact that I had been so thoroughly mislead and terrified at what now was obviously an extremely terrible joke.

"You do know the DHS is monitoring this conversation, don't you?" I responded.

Brad spoke very clearly and deliberately into the phone once again, "Uh oh. There's not a bomb on the bus. THERE IS NOT A BOMB ON THE BUS."

I didn't tell Jordan exactly what that whole conversation was all about until we got to his place, because we were getting on another bus. I just let him know that someone was just fucking with me, and said things that we shouldn't repeat while we're on the bus.



Now that the Department of Homeland Security's automated domestic wiretapping system has likely flagged that conversation, and added me to their watchlists until the content can be more thoroughly analyzed by an agent, I have a message for the DHS: Hi DHS! *waves* For all its faults, I love Amerca. I even love Utah, even though I complain about it. I am not a terrorist. Please don't give me a hard time on my flight back to Seattle. Please?

LAME: Google Chrome for Mac lacks Google Earth Support

Yeah, yeah. It's a developer release. Not a finished product. Seems to work well enough, besides using the Google Earth plugin so far. Not sure wtf is up with the gap between the tabs on top (woot!) and the top of the window though. I like Safari 4's tabs on top implementation better. Currently lacking favicons. HOLY CRAP Chrome is FAST!

Google chrome for mac [middle secret link]: http://is.gd/OQgv (via @kevinrose)

UPDATE: No flash support for YouTube!? WTF, Google! I know it's a work in progress, but COME ON.

UPDATE 12/8/09: STILL LAME: Google Chrome for Mac still lacks Google Earth Support.

Style Sheet Maddness

Oh noes! The style sheet has been hit with the ugly stick. This is clearly Mechnoch's fault. He's summoned the fail sheet!

Update 4/30/09: Fixed it, mostly. No longer uglified.

Update 5/1/09: And I somehow screwed something up royally, and blogger reported some sort of error rendering widgets. Back to the fail sheet for a bit.

Update 5/11/09: That's a little bit better. Still want a more interesting background, but at least the text looks nice.

Update 5/13/09: Ok, I think that this style sheet can now be considered a finished product. Let the blogging resume!

DiggBar vs Safari 4

If you're running Safari 4, go to digg.com, click on a link on the front page, and you should see the controversial new "DiggBar" feature. Fuckin thing sucks in Safari 4. If you scroll down the page, and then slowly scroll back up, DiggBar leaves nasty gray horizontal artifacts. Here's an example:


Will you please fix this, Digg?

UPDATE 4/21/09: Diggbar has been updated, and the nasty gray horizontal artifacts no longer appear. Yay Digg!
If you are interesed in the rest of the updates they rolled out today, read this!

Back to the Grind...

The days of simply going to work, and coming home, with the occasional day off, are officially over now as I go back to the daily grind of life as a college student. I am keeping my job at about 28 hours per week, while still attending full time (12 credits) at UW. This will continue for approximately the next two years until I graduate and get a real job.

I mean, fixing broken Macs is fun and all, but for me it doesn't seem like a viable long-term career if I want to afford a mortgage, and start a family.

I'm applying for the Informatics department at the University of Washington this year, with possible alternate majors of Applied Computing or Computing and Software Systems at UW Bothell if somehow things don't work out.

I'm a little annoyed at the fact that UW doesn't supply individualized class schedules compatible with iCal, Google, Calendars, or even Outlook. I had to enter everything manually. Lame.

Furthermore, why would anyone want to subscribe to the calendars I just posted?

The Problem with Microblogging...

The problem with microblogging is that it is entirely unnatural to refer to yourself in the third person. Twitter, Facebook, etc basically ask the same question (What are you doing right now? What's on your mind? etc.)

The problem arises from the fact that the microblogging services jam your username at the front of the post with no punctuation, leading users to use their username as the first word of the sentence. Myspace used to automatically enter "is" right after the username, but has stopped doing that recently. Facebook used to lead with your first name, while Twitter never even presumed to remind you that the username prefaces all tweets.

I've noticed lots of Twitter users just typing regular sentences or even (*gasp*) starting their sentences with subjective first-person singular pronouns. Mechnoch I do not think that this looks right, personally.

And it wreaks havoc if you tie Twitter and Facebook together. Subjective first-person singular pronouns are far less common on Facebook, and unheard of on Myspace due to the fact that these services (used to) remind the user during posting that their username will lead the post. So what is someone to do if they want their Facebook status to be updated with every tweet? Spend minutes of my valuable time to re-arrange my thoughts into the third person? Tweet in regular sentences, ignoring the fact that my friends on Facebook and Myspace are going to think I'm retarded for not speaking in the third person?

Mechnoch hereby resolves to tweet and update status exclusively in the third-person. In fact, Mechnoch may just start referring to himself in the third person all the time, even if people start saying that Mechnoch is starting to sound like Elmo.

Vincezilla vs Warner Music Group

Remember that cute little video of my iguana attacking a town full of vegetables? Well the folks over at Warner Music Group decided that since my video used less than a minute of Blue Öyster Cult's track "Godzilla", they had to force YouTube to take it down by crying copyright infringement.

Now, when you try to view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=224Zcn1fiXA all you get is: This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by WMG. Update: The video now plays, but the audio track has been replaced with horrifically lame music, and the video is spammed with ads.

The folks over at MIT have logged this event at: http://youtomb.mit.edu/youtube/224Zcn1fiXA

Now, I'm all-for musician's rights, but taking down a silly video of someone's iguana because it used a snippet of copyrighted music just seems absurd to me. What do they honestly think they're accomplishing here? Is taking down my iguana video going to suddenly get someone to purchase a Blue Öyster Cult album from their local record store? Was I somehow degrading the value of their copyrighted work in some other way? I thought the video was funny and cute. Honestly, I had never even heard of Blue Öyster Cult's song "Godzilla" before we made that video project.

I completely understand prohibiting the reproduction of someone else's copyrighted work for commercial purposes. I didn't make any money off that video. No one paid me to make that video. I did not reproduce the entire song, and silly sound effects often drowned out the portion that I did use. What's the big freaking deal?

I think that next, Vincezilla is going to have to wreak havoc upon Warner Music Group's headquarters. Be afraid WMG. Be very afraid.

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“The failure to perform a public duty...Misprision is a versatile word that can denote a number of offenses. It can refer to the improper performance of an official duty...The most familiar and popular use of the term misprision describes the failure to report a crime....The first Congress passed a misprision of felony statute in 1789. The statute holds, "Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony … conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States" is guilty of misprision of felony and can be punished with up to three years in prison.

Under the federal statute, the prosecution must prove the following elements to obtain a misprision of felony conviction:

(1)another person actually committed a felony;
(2)the defendant knew that the felony was committed;
(3)the defendant did not notify any law enforcement or judicial officer; and
(4)the defendant took affirmative steps to conceal the felony.”