20 Sucks...

Ok so my birthday is today but I realized its only a tease. What good is 20 years old? It's really sad that I'm an "adult" now and I still cant go buy a case of beer. DAH

Step 1 = Check

I have come to the conclusion that its time to buy a house. No more renting (never seeing the money again) or having to deal with noise complaints. Now I can listen to my stereo as loud as I want and finally utilize my 1000w subwoofer connected to my surround sound.

The first obvious step for any first-time homeowner is to get pre-approved for a mortgage. This step is critical in determining a budget for the new house. I turned to Wells Fargo Mortgage, since I have used Wells Fargo Banking since 1997, and was extremely impressed! Not only was the consultant I dealt with extremely helpful but I ended up getting pre-approved for a 6% interest rate.

The next step is to start looking at housing... Duh! As you can tell I am very exciting and cant wait till Friday when I have a half day so I can go look at houses.

Inside Man was Awesome!

"Inside Man" is the story of a tough cop, Detective Frazier (Denzel Washington), who matches withs with a clever bank robber, Dalton (Clive Owen). As the dangerous cat-and-mouse game unfolds, a wild card emerges: Madaline (Jodie Foster), a power broker with a hidden agenda, who injects even more instability into an already volatile situation.

And yes, it is Spike Lee so be prepared!

I give this movie a "A+" and it will be added to "Joe's ONLY good movie DVD collection" once it is released on DVD.

Kicks Does Not Kick

New Plano, Texas, Supercenter Takes Innovative Approach to Enhancing Shopping Experience. After reading the article in the Dallas Morning News, I found (to my surprise) Wal-Mart has opened a "lab" store near my house. Although this store is called, owned and operated by Wal-Mart, it is NOT a Wal-Mart from any visitors view. Not only do you immedently notice and slate tile and upgrade uniforms (polos with khakis worn by employee's), but everything between layout of the store and the products they sell are different. Wal-Mart is known to sell cheaper quality brand names to maintain its "lower prices" mentality - not at this Wal-Mart!

As so as I entered the 208,000 square foot building, I noticed they added a coffee shop to their interior mall of random stores (nail grooming, hair grooming, restaurant and bank). My first stop was in the coffee shop where I decided to get a delicious coffee while I stroll the new store... or so I thought. The cafe was very "Starbucks-looking" with its executive feel but they did offer a few things Starbucks does not. This would include five 42" Phillips plasma TV's tuned into the news, free Wi-Fi and even a free desktop to use to browse the web.
After waiting almost 20 minutes between the line and preparation time, Danielle and I received two coffees. Now I must say I am a somewhat seasoned coffee drinker if you know what I mean and Kick's coffee was by far the worst coffee I have ever tasted. I'm still unsure if the coffee was suppose to taste like a re-used cigar or if they just suck that much...

After the mild let down of coffee, we were off to explore the store. Some observations while browsing the store would include:

• Wide aisles
• Sushi bar
• Brand name products
• More selection
• Higher quality products
• expanded electronics department (watch out BestBuy)
• expanded "home" department (watch out Home Depot)
• More available help from employee's
• 1,500 different wine selections
• LOTS OF SPACE

In summary, it was a great experience. They shouldn't call it a "lab" store because I think its very clear this "test" was successful.

More information about the store

I've Got a Catahoula

Random Catahoula

Ok, so it turns out the reason I couldn't put a definitive breed on my dog is because she's a Catahoula Leopard Dog! Originally I thought she was part Australian Cattle Dog because of her overall looks and part Husky because of her tail and eye color. It turns out Catahoulas come from Australian Cattle dog (that's why she looks like one) and they have "glass eyes" which would explain the bright blue color.

My Dog

The Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog is independent, protective, and territorial. Loving with their family and all people they know well and reserved with strangers (this would include strange children). They need to make up to a person, not a person make up to them. Of course there are temperaments on both sides of this, but this is for the average dog. They mature right around 2 and it is as if a light goes on and they say to themselves "I am an adult now and I need to act grown up." This breeds reservation with strangers should not be noticed in a pup, but will show as the dog matures. Although affectionate with his master, the Catahoula is not recommended for the casual pet owner who is uninterested in allowing the dog to function in his intended capacity. For the right owner, this is a protective yet dominating canine. Signs of timidly on a leash should not be taken as cowardness, but the intolerance for strangers. This breed needs a dominant owner who shows strong leadership.

More on the Catahoula Breed

False Memory Disorder

A false memory is a memory which is a distortion of an actual experience, or a confabulation of an imagined one. Many false memories involve confusing or mixing fragments of memory events, some of which may have happened at different times but which are remembered as occurring together. Many false memories involve an error in source memory. Some involve treating dreams as if they were playbacks of real experiences.

I recently read the following article about false memories... It is VERY interesting!

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Talk About a Beast!

Never to be outdone, ATI Technologies has announced the industry’s first one gigabyte (1GB) workstation graphics accelerator, the ATI FireGL V7350, and also a 512MB configuration, the FireGL V7300.

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Blog, Blog, Blog...

What does "blog" mean?

That's a good question. I have done countless amounts of research on the topic searching for the answer and I must say - there isn't one. People and companies blog for all sorts of reasons. The word "blog" has become a buzz word throughout the internet community all pointing to "weblog." Yes, that's it, weblog is "blog's" parent. I have found the following as possible blog inspirations...

1. Rant about personal issues going on in ones life
2. Post about industry specific issues in hopes to have searchers geared to your blog for SEO reasons (LOL)
3. SEO marketing - get users familiar with your companies practices and verbiage in hopes to capture them as a customer
4. MY FAVORITE: Create a drama storm for others to get revved up on...

No matter what your weblog is about, you are simply not cool until you create one!

V for Very Interesting

My girlfriend and I made it to the movie theater the wet and rainy weekend (as, its safe to assume, many of north Texans did). We contemplated whether or not to see V for Vendetta due to its mixed reviews. We finally decided hey - theirs nothing better out, lets go see it!

The movie started out slow but so does most comic book remakes that must stress the history behind what they are trying to accomplish. It starts in England, the only remaining country left after "the big war", in year 2030 (somewhere around then). I think its really neat how they go into the mental characteristics of a post war era where the government owns and controls everything. Its very similar to Equilibrium, a movie the describes a world after "the big war" where citizens have near to no rights and all emotions are sucked out of them through a daily injection's.

I wont give away anything else in hopes that you will go see the movie. I would rate this movie as A- in my scale.

Best Spring Break 06' Photo

By far the best picture from Spring Break 06' = Ian's birthday at Benton's house.

Spring Break Fun

More pictures and videos to come!

Lacrosse Game and NYC

I can't wait till April 8th! Danielle and I are going to Syracuse, NY to see SU beat Princeton in a nice game of college lacrosse. Then, we are taking a train to NYC to do various things. Some would include The Lion King Broadway show, Little Italy, The Statue and many more.

I REALLY CANT WAIT!

Moving Pains

My Grandma moves here (to Texas) this weekend and I am stuck with moving boxes, building storage devices, and general lifting heavy items. :-( But its ok because she is family and I'm excited most of my family are seeing the light and moving to Texas.

Texas Rocks!

A Passed Out Dog = A Good Dog

don't get me wrong, I love playing with my pup but its also good when she sleeps.

Another Night at the "Other" Office

Oh just another night at the second home of Joe Mocerino... That being my house of course.

Being a freelance developer is by far every programmers dream (or at lease it should be). Something about being a nerd and being able to choose your own projects - what YOU want to work on. You get to be your own project manager - YOU don't have to deal with PHB's and red tape. Could anyone ask for a better job?

The only downside of working on your own is you lose the teamwork and collaborative effort to develop something. For example, I keep trying to think of the best way to represent an AJAX function via a GUI and cant seem to land something I like.

Programmer woes...

My New Geek Toy

I'm excited! I finally made the long-thought about decision to buy a video camera. I went with a Sony, of course, due to their advancements in lens, picture quality, and functionally. This would include: Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens, 2.5" touch panel Swivel Screen color LCD monitor, and 1/6" Advanced HAD CCD image sensor with 680K pixels. Not to mention is records in MiniDV (DVD quality) format!

I know this may sound nerdy but hey, what can I say? - I am a nerd!

Deep Sea 3D IMAX

I must say the IMAX technology blows me away. Between the 6 channel 44 speaker system, 15/70mm film size, and the 7 story screen, movie theaters will never be the same. Now, I have seen IMAX movies before but this 3D IMAX was a first for me. I was amazed how close to the action you can really be with 3D technology.

Can You Believe It's Been a Year?

Simply amazing! Danielle (Pretty) and I have been together 1 year, today.

March 4th, 2005

March 4th, 2006

I'm on Rails!

After reviewing rails-written applications such as Basecamp and Writeboard by 37signals, I have come to the conclusion that my next endeavor will be Ruby on Rails.

Ruby on Rails is an open-source (Microsoft supporters cringe) web framework that's optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration.

That being said, I paid a visit to go old Barnes & Noble to pick up: Agile Web Development with Rails, a rails training book, recommended by my Brother to get me started.

Other then the EXTREMELY complicated setup and configuration process to get rails working on my Windows-based PC, I'm happy with what I see so far from the demos and tutorials.

I will probably be knee-deep into rails over the weekend.

One of My Hero's

I don't even know how to introduce this guy... Going to his site alone should be explaining enough, so here it is: http://www.oregonreef.com/.

This guy mastered the home reef keeping hobby. He has a 850 gallon reef with almost every coral you can imagine. If you browse the site you will see his ideas, photos, and equipment used to create this spectacular display.