Yesterday, we said goodbye to 2008 and “How you doooin’?” to 2009. Last year was quite a busy one for me. When I say busy, I’m comparing it to previous years where I did nothing other than scratch my butt and sniff my fingers. That’s only fun for so long!

I thought I would recap some of the cool things that went on last year. Hopefully I can keep the momentum going and have even a better 2009.

• For my birthday last year my family presented me with a film class. The class ran from January 22 to April-something. We had to write a script and then as a class we decide which ones were going to get made. Andrea, my sister, was taking the class with me. We both decided we wanted to make our scripts. My film feel apart trying to look for locations. After that Andrea asked me to direct her short, Socially. Long story, short. We found the cast and filmed in early March. The short premeired to all of the other film classes on April 26th. Great experience.

• Next up was the SXSW film festival. I didn’t fully emerge myself in the experience because I had to work most of the week. But it was my first time since living in Austin that I actually experienced SXSW…other than the traffic. The biggest highlight, besides all the movies, was seeing the cast of Harold and Kumar. NPH (Neil Patrick Harris) is funny as hell!
• In May, we traveled to Savannah, Georgia to Charleston, SC and then to Mrytle Beach, SC. It was great seeing family members that I haven’t seen in a long time. I was pumped to go to Savannah only to be let down. It had some beautiful things to see but overall the place is a dump…think New Orleans but less puke and piss. I did have the best Guiness of my life at some Irish pub we came across. It was also on this trip that Alev and I decided that we were going to move to Raleigh, NC in the next year. We had done this before but we were determined.
• Operation ‘Get the F*** Out of Our House’ was in full effect. It was the biggest road block in us moving to the east cost. When we got back from our trip we hit the ground running. We fixed it up and put it on the market. Sucker sold quick!! I’m in no rush to buy another house anytime soon.
• We saw some changes in the transportation department. We got rid of the crap box that was our 1999 Tahoe (quick friendly reminder, even family members will dick you over) and replaced it with a 2006 Chrysler Pacifica. I also purchased my first Harley Davidson, a 2008 Nightster. Looking back at the bike purchase, not the smartest thing to do but oh well. That is something I’m known for doing.

• With little time left in Austin we wanted to make sure we did as much as possible with friends. Generally Alev and I are homebodies. When asked if we want to go out we would make up an excuse of why we couldn’t. But that is something we don’t like and have been working on for the past year or so. With that said, we made sure we didn’t pass any opportunity to do anything we friends. Even if we had to fight the urge to sit on our asses. We had some AWESOME times.  Too many pictures to pick through. But I will post the one I like best. It’s from Tubing for Nikka’s Bday. She had too much to drink.
• 
• I got 2nd place for BBQ sauce in my companies annual BBQ cookoff. First time making a sauce! Whaddup!
• I experienced my first deep sea fishing trip. Sharon, Alev, Eric, and I headed down to South Padre for a weekend. We caught some kingfish and took them to a restaurant to cook up for us. Good times…no Great Times!!!

• After talking about it for years and years, we finally moved to Raleigh, NC. This is by far the biggest thing to happen this year. Everything feel into place and we made the move. Originally we planned to move sometime in 2009. If we had put it off till then we probably would not followed through with it. But we did move and we love it some far. Now we just need to get all of our friends to move up here and we’ll be set.

• We ended the year having an awesome Christmas. For the first time ever my family didn’t give any gifts to each other. We’ve been known to spend way too much money on past Christmases. So with our move, economy, and just cause we decided not to buy any gifts and it was the best ever. Zero stress. Bank account looks no worse than normal. We just enjoyed each others company and played some board games and Scene it! on the 360.

There you have it, a brief review of my year. I had a lot of great experiences this past year and I could be here all day writing about them. But that’s not going to happen. Just know it was a great year for me (not including the part where Andrea and I weren’t talking for a few months and missed out on spending time together before I left Austin). I only hope 2009 will be even better.

Happy New Year!

Do you have nothing else better to do? Check out this great cover of Enter Sandman on the Kazoo. It starts off kind of slow but it gets awesome..er..awesomer.

Metallica would be stupid not to invite this guy to join the band. This could return them to the great days of Ride the Lightning and Cliff Burton.

Earlier this year a co-worker sent me a link and suggested that I try Twitter. Even before signing up for an account I really couldn’t grasp the concept of the tool. Is it meant to be a sort of mini blog or another way to let friends know when a new pimple pops up on my ass. It’s hard to tell. I haven’t seen any two people use it the same way.

Since I don’t see many using it as a mini blog, I’m going to assume it’s a way to keep their friends in the loop with their happenings. Which seems kind of stupid. Do I really want to know when someones walks into a gym, is in line to buy Hannah Montana tickets, or stubs their toe.  Sooner or later it’s going to progress and they’re going to start twitting…twitted…tweet…posting every little detail about them you don’t want to know. 

Let me show you the future of Twitter by taking you through a normal Saturday in my life. 

SirRobbieRob I’m at Five Guys eating the greasiest burger known to man. I’m probably going to regret this later about 8 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob Having some serious cramps going on. These could probably be consider contractions. I think I’m having a baby…a butt baby. about 7 hours ago from twitterberry

SirRobbieRob The cold sweats have started. I really have to go the bathroom but holding out. In a weird way it feels really good holding it in. Like really, really good. about 7 hours ago from the web

SirRobbieRob Sweet baby Jesus! It’s been blasting out for 25 minutes non stop. This could be the WMD Bush was looking for. about 6 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob It’s over!!! Thank God! Time to start cleaning up. Hopefully we have enough TP. about 6 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob Jump the gun. Its going again. This isn’t humanly possibly. No one is full of this much shit. about 6 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob If someone is reading this, please help. I’ve lost all muscle control and can’t stop. I may pass out soon. about 6 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob I’ve been wiping on and off for 15 minutes. My ass is really sore, probably going to get a hemroid. I need to remind Alev to buy some baby wipes. about 6 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob ewww I got poo on my finger. Does this day get any worse. about 5 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob Yes, yes it does. I just gave myself a dirty sanchez… about 5 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob Clean up is done. My ass is sore. All I smell is poo. about 5 hours ago from the twitterberry

SirRobbieRob I’m exhausted and going to take a nap. Thanks to twitter I didn’t have to go thru this nightmare alone. about 4 hours ago from the twitterberry

Besides my stalker (Merry Christmas John!), does anyone really want that much detail about my life. I know I don’t want to know that much about yours…unless you’re a cool celebrity like David Spade or Fabio. 

Maybe that’s it! We all want to be a cool celebrity like David Spade and like thinking people give a crap about our happenings and whereabouts. If that’s the case,  I have a better idea than twitter.

How about a Rent-A-Stalker service?  (I can’t take credit for this idea. It’s all my stalker’s idea. Thanks John and don’t worry, I ‘m working on that restraining order. Should be ready by XMas.) You would have someone to follow you everywhere and , if you choose (additional fee), kill you on your front lawn. This service would allow you the opportunity to live a life similar to Paula Abdul or Madonna…without the money of course. 

Rent-A-Stalker…the new twitter! Ch-Ching

Happy Holidays!

If you get a minute, post a comment about your thoughts on twitter and how you use it.

If you ARE interested in knowing about my bathroom habits, feel free to head over to Twitter and follow me; http://twitter.com/SirRobbieRob

I’m a huge fan of the 80’s cartoon, The Thundercats. To say the least, I’m a little excited about the live action movie that is in the works. But there is no telling when that might actually see the light of day. Thankfully, there are a bunch of fanboys with some serious skills. The latest in fanboy created material is a really impressive trailer starring Brad Pitt, Vin Diesel, Garfield, and more.

Check it out.

Another awesome example of why Bollywood is greater than Hollywood.

Supposedly, the main guy in the video is a “great dance master”. The guy’s name is Prabhu Deva and a quick look on YouTube finds a ton of great treasures.

It makes me want to move over there and become an international pop star. Imagine it now…so sweet!

It’s pretty awesome that NASA has finally figured out how to recycle urine into drinking water. When this hits the home market it’s going to help save me a ton on buying bottled water.

My sides hurt from laughing so hard.

The best thing to happen to Saturday Night Live in recent memory is the comic trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone. They’re responsible for all of the Digital Shorts you see on SNL almost every week. I’m sure you’ve seen some of these, like Dick in a Box with Justin Timberlake or Lazy Sunday. Here is the latest Digital Short from last nights SNL. Pure Gold!

I have to go a little nerd on you. I’ve been working on my AIX test system trying to get Apache2 and PHP5 installed. The reason for this is because I want to setup drupal with a DB2 backend. Once, if, I get this working I plan on setting up a team page for my co-workers.

Why am I putting this on SirRobbieRob.com? Just in the case this system completely dies on me, I don’t want to have to figure it out again. So, more than anything, it’s here for my reference.

Prerequisites

1. Make sure you have the necessary free space in the following filesystems:
* /usr
* /opt
* /home
* /tmp

2. Download the following:

* Apache Web Server 2.2.2 source code - link
* GNU C compiler version 4 for AIX 5.3 - link
* GCC library for AIX 5.3 - link
* PHP 5.1 source code - link
* XML support – IBM’s AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications is back rev’d. Use these instead
libxml2 2.6.21

libxml2-devel
General tools from IBM AIX Toolbox Download Page
o LEX flex-2.5
o XML support expat-1.95.7
o Compression library zlib-1.2.2
o Compression develoment zlib-devel-1.2.2
o Compression library bz2-1.0.2-3
o jpeg support libjpeg-6b-6
o jpeg support development libjpeg-devel-6b-6
o png support libpng-1.2.1-6
o png development libpng-devel-1.2.1-6
o Pixmap xpm-3.4k
o Pixmap development xpm-devel-3.4k
o Freetype2 fonts freetype2-2.1.7-2
o Freetype2 fonts development freetype2-devel-2.1.7-2
o Gettext support gettext-0.10.40
o Any other libraries you might need for Apache or PHP
* Install all the RPM files

3. Install libm.a from the AIX CDROM
4. Install the compiler and library

rpm -Uvh gcc-4*.rpm
rpm -Uvh libgcc-4*rpm

Compiling Apache2 using GCC

1. Uncompress the Apache Web Server source into your home directory

# gunzip httpd-2*tar.gz
# tar xvf httpd-2*.tar
# cd httpd*

2. Build the configuration file enabling shared object

# ./configure

3. Compile the server

#slibclean
# make

4. Install the server (/usr/local/apache2)

# make install

Compiling PHP using GCC

1. Uncompress the PHP source code file and untar the file

# gunzip php*tar.gz
# tar xvf php*.tar
# cd php-5.1.4

2. Build the configuration file enabling shared objects

# export PATH=/opt/freeware/bin:$PATH
# ./configure –prefix=/usr/local –with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs –with-config-file-path=/usr/local/apache2/conf –with-gd –with-pear –with-gettext –with-mime-magic –with-zlib-dir=/opt/freeware/lib –enable-shared –disable-static –with-png –with-zlib –with-bz2 –with-xml –with-jpeg-dir=/opt/freeware/lib –with-png-dir=/opt/freeware/lib –with-xpm-dir=/opt/freeware/lib –with-freetype-dir=/opt/freeware/lib

3. Compile PHP with the following command:

# make

NOTE: There will be compiler warnings about pointers type mismatches. The can be disregarded.
4. Install PHP with the following two commands

# cp .libs/libphp5.so /usr/local/apache2/modules
# cp php.ini-recommended /usr/local/apache2/conf/php.ini

Configuring Apache2 with PHP

1. Stop Apache2

# /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl -k stop

2. Edit /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf, adding the following at the end

LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
DirectoryIndex index.php

3. Edit the /usr/local/apache2/conf/php.ini file

Change the php variable:
;date.timezone =
to reflect your timezone

4. Restart Apache2

# /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl -k start

5. Now test PHP with Apache2

* Create a test web page

# vi /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/phpinfo.php
<?php phpinfo() ?>
* Open the page in your browser: http://localhost/phpinfo.php
* Verify the php data
* Delete phpinfo.php

# rm /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/phpinfo.php

You can’t go to any big news site without reading something about the big 3 automakers seeking a 25 billion dollar bailout from Congress. All 3 of them are in danger of running out of money which means 750,000 Americans would be out of a job.  I’m not sure if that includes the jobs that depend on the automakers for business but that number has the potential to be a lot higher.

Even so, Congress should not bailout the US automakers for their stupid ass business decisions. You don’t see the Japanese automakers begging for money. Yeah, they’re not making the profits they would like to be, but they’re making some profit. Even a retarded yeti could have told you banking on big ass trucks in today’s world is plain stupid. You would think with all that money you have invested in your SUVs and Pickups, you would have the best out there. But that’s not even the case.  Toyota Tacoma and Tundra’s are far superior in quality. But that’s all history, we can’t change the fact you thought selling turds with your emblem would be enough to get you by. We need to look to the future. We need someone to come in and steer us in the right direction.

I think I know the right person for the job.

Me!

I have a plan that I think will work. It’s pretty simple.

Bail my ass out!

Give me the money to pay off my debts. That way I can start over, and I don’t mean start over by cleaning the slate and learning from past mistakes. I mean pay off my debt and I will go full out, racking it right back up, injecting that money right back into the economy. I will even do better than that…I will double the amount of debt I get into. Maybe I will even use some of the money to buy a crappy American car (See this plan will even help the automakers). In order for this plan to work, every American must be bailed out. I’m fairly certain this would help get us out of a recession.

Unfortunately, it will probably come right back around because I (we) would not be able to pay off the new debt. But that is easy enough to fix. Just bail me (us) out again! I (we) will turn around and triple the amount of debt I (we…you get the point) got into originally.

You may be saying to yourself “This is, by far, the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard”

I respond to this with a question; How is this any different than bailing out the automakers? What are they going to change if they get the money? Ohhh the CEOs are going to work for $1 a year. Nice plan dipshit. They will work for $1, but they will continue producing SUVs and Trucks that no one is going to buy. They need time to shift their focus from Trucks, SUVs, and retro Muscle Cars (I’m a sucker, that new Dodge Challenger looks sexy, don’t forget the Chevy Camaro coming out) to making some economy class cars that consumers want to drive. That isn’t going to happen anytime soon, so they will be back sometime next year asking for more money.

So Congress, hurry up and bail ME out. I have my eye on a Ferrari I can’t afford.

We have just hit our 2 month mark since arriving in North Carolina. For the most part it has been an easy transition for us. We live in a nice apartment, surrounded by beautiful trees, and Alev is loving the cold weather (not me). All in All, we are loving living on the east coast.

There is one thing that worries me. The people of the Carolinas are some of the nicest people you will ever meet…until they get into their cars. As soon as they get into the car and turn the ignition, they turn into blood thirsty animals. They will run you off the road and not even blink, if it means getting to their destination quicker.

Do you need to change lanes from the access ramp to the highway? Forget about it. They won’t let you in. The only way you will get on is by having the same thirst for blood as them. You have to be willing to swap paint to get home.

North Carolina doesn’t seem to like protected green light turns. It seems like every light is a yield only on green. So you need to turn into that shopping center to buy your ailing grandmother a get well card? Tough shit! It ain’t going to happen. Even if you get a break in traffic, somewhere a sensor goes off and a crazy ass old lady will come out of nowhere to make sure you can’t turn. Sorry Grans.

Driving on a single lane road and need to make a left turn? OHHHH so sorry. In this scenario, it would be safer for you to go on a 18 month tour in Iraq. If you have to stop and wait for oncoming traffic, you’re holding up traffic behind you. This really pisses off the Carolinians…Carolinites…whatever. Looking in your rear view mirror you can see Bubba pulling out his rifle and his mouth start to water. Thirst for blood I’m telling you.

Want to go out for a nice ride on your motorcycle? HAHA sucker. On your bike you do not exist, think woman in corporate America (zing!). I have been riding on the streets for a little over a year. Most of that time was in Texas. In Texas, I had maybe 3 times where a driver failed to notice me and pushed me off the road. Since being in NC, I bested this number in the first week. If they happen to realize they pushed you off the road in most cases they will give you that wtf? face.

I now know why my auto insurance tripled just by moving to North Carolina. All you drivers in NC are effin nuts. I’m thinking about running for some public office and pushing mandatory anger management classes when applying for a drivers license. I will also push for the state motto to be changed to “The Jekyll and Hyde State”.