Hello All,

Yes, I am alive!! ^_^

I wanted to wish you all, a Happy St Patricks day!

My house was filled with corn-beef, potatoes, whiskey, Guinness, family, and friends. I was a very happy man.

*raises glass* Here's to you my friends!

I was pleased with how my corn beef turned out this year, included a pic of the feast below.

Okay , so I am confused. I was eating dinner with my family, and I asked my son how his day at school went. Nathan told me that he was going through an anti-drug program. Which is good, I informed how "Drug are bad, Mkay" and he should never use them. I asked to see his notes, and the program was very similar to the D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program I took as a kid.

The focus of the anti-drug classes was to avoid any form of illegal drug, and that the children should not do drugs to be "cool". They also stressed that the popularity of a specific action like smoking, or paint huffing, should not motivate the children to emulate the actions of their peers. Which is all fine and good, until I sat down to watch an episode of 'Chowder' with the kids after dinner. If you are not aware, Chowder is a new cartoon on Cartoon Network, my kids like it so I try to watch what they watch. Some stuff like "High school musical" though, yeah, no fucking way am I sitting through that shit.

Now as I am watching the show, it cuts to a commercial. This commercial features a child who cannot get his magic trick to work. Another child comes in with a "How to Perform Magic" book, he reads the book and then shows the child how to perform the magic trick. The junior charlatan magician then becomes an erudite of the dark arts by reading the book himself. The commercial ended with "Reading...Everybody's doing it!". I could almost hear the wires crackling in Nathan's brain. He looked over at me with a puzzled look and asked "So, are books drugs?".

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!?! I mean talk about mixed signals. My kids are going to school being told "don't do things because it is popular" , then while watching their T.V shows are being told "Hey kids, do things that are popular!". No wonder my kids look at me with that blank stare half the time , and think I am an idiot. It's because they see shit like this going on!! Why trust what the adults say, when in their eyes we cant even get our own facts straight.

I informed Nathan that books were not drugs, and that the people making this commercial were mentally handicapped. He then told me , that I should be nice to the "commercial people", like he is nice to the kids in the "special class", he proceeded to tell me it was not their fault they are like that and they need a lot of love....... I responded to my son with "Your right Nathan, thanks for the reminder buddy"

At least through all the mixed messages, and confusion of the world, my sons heart is in the right place.

Current Mood: contemplative

Hello All,


I know its been a while since I last posted, but I am alive and well. I am sitting here in bed having a hard time sleeping and I was thinking how much I missed all you guys, San Antonio is way to far away from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Its funny how insightful one becomes between the hours of two and three AM. Things for me are going well down here, the job is still going well and Atticus,Zoe,and Nathan are all growing to fast. I placed some additional photos of our vacation up to Pittsburgh at http://atticustotin.com/zenphoto/. I apologize if I missed seeing any of you , when I got up there I felt more busy than when I was at work. I was running around so much I felt like I needed a vacation from my vacation when it was all over. I ended up getting a Hines Ward jersey from the Strip district which I am very excited about , but for some reason my Texan co-workers do not care for it ^_^
Anyway guys I will be posting more often and trying to keep it better touch. I miss you guys!!

Current Mood: sad

Hello all,

I wanted to take a moment to say Happy St Pats day!!

*raises glass of fine Jamesons*

To all my friends, may God bless and keep you!

*drinks*

^_^

Current Mood: peaceful

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the roflbrothel ^_^ :

Current Mood: amused

Here I am in San Antonio on the weekend of the new Romero film, and not a single movie theater in the San Antonio/Austin area is playing it =(

I called ten movies theaters and each of the managers told me they were not planning on receiving the movie at any point in the near future. One of them asked me who Romero was!

Fuck you Texas, Fuck you right in the eye.

I might as well fly up to da Burg and see it @ the Squirrel Hill theater

Current Mood: enraged

Well , as many of you know I have a slight obsession with George Ramero. Not sure if all of you know this already but he is creating the next film in his Dead Series titled "Diary of the Dead", and it is scheduled release date is on Valentines day. Thats right nothing says I love you like a gruesome zombie film from the horror master himself. The website with an exclusive trailer can be found on George's myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/diaryofthedead

So yes , to say I am excited would be an understatement!!! I cant Freaking Wait!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Ok. I am calmed down now. Of course the wife may have other ideas on how she would like to spend V-day =).

Not much new to report here. I have been playing Bio-Shock quite a bit and am very impressed with the game, its environment is very interactive and the storyline is engrossing , the graphics are incredible, and the "biological enhancements" makes the game play very engrossing and "gross" =) At one part of the game I got a vile of "Eve" that re-wrote my genetic code to allow me to shoot swarms of bee's out of my arms! I give this game a 10 out of 10 in my book

Also if any of you are interested I setup a website for the kid at "http://www.atticustotin.com" , if any one would like to have me host their website on my company server for free please let me know. I can also host email as well on the given domain , let me know if you interested.

I hope all is going well with everyone , send some good thoughts my way and take care!

Current Mood: amused

I really liked these ones, enjoy =)


Bath Time is Fun!
The Ladies Man
Super Happy Baby

I miss you all , I hope everyones Holiday went well, send some good thoughts my way =D

Well it official , Mario Brother Galaxy and Assassins Creed have now completely dominated my life. I first played AC and was marveled at the magnificent visual associated with the middle ages, this first orgasmic sense was further intensified when I first encountered the combat system. The combat system in AC is more than just typical button mashing, it is a combination of sequential and live first come first serve turned based attacks, very awesome. Not to mention the interaction with the environment is off the chart, you actually have to hold in a button to "gently push" civilians away as you are about to execute a given person. 9.5/10

And Mario Brother Galaxy is liquid crack , at time you are upside down stomping Gombas as your partner collect the comets of StarBit to further assist you, so far my favorite level has been "Candy Land Galaxy: Rocky Road" where you have to navigate over a spinning road which changes directions at random times. oh and the candy road is riddle with candy shaped holes that if you fall down will cause Mario to plumment to his doom. Being a huge fan of the traditional side-scroller I really feel like the side-scrolling action is almost perfectly combined with a 3D environment in space. 10/10

If you any of you have a chance to play these games I would highly recommend it. Hope all it well with yenz, keep it real. Oh and in Mario Galaxy there is an enormous feud between me and My 8 year old son as to who can beat the game first, it is officially on!

Current Mood: enthralled

Attention all Wii owners!

If any of my friends have their Wii online , and who wouldn't want that ;=)
Please Update me with your Wii number. Mine is:

8521-8063-5790-5172

Peace!

Well its almost been about 7 months that I have been living down here in the Lone Star State and with that I thought a honest evaluation of the total experience so far would be beneficial for both me and my friends. I would have to say that so far I believe I have found the central repositories, nay , the breading ground in a controlled government project for all the assholes in the entire human race. Some of you may think this is harsh, others of you will doubt the authenticity of these statements by claiming that impartial agency is not being properly employed in my judgments of this fine State, but I assure nothing could be further from the truth.

First of Texas do not believe in making cars with blinkers , and as far as I can tell have somehow found a a way to reverse engineer the steering well with their cell phones so that by having the cell phone on your ear and the slight turning of ones head some how manages to make their 10,000 pound trucks turn almost instantly in front of your without hesitation or warning. Being that I am from the North when I employee my auditory alarm device in a reaction to this almost alien form of driving it is always met with a distance almost zombie like stare from the offending driver. Which lead me to think, "should I get made at the people, is this really there fault?". This is where my suspicions of ass-hole breading ground began.

Next is the alarming amount of gun related crimes and or accidents in Texas. I have found that there is a Texas drinking game where ones turns on the evening news and for every report on a gun related crime or accident one must take a shot. Being that I have a considerable tolerance for alcoholic beverages I decided I would join my new found Texan brethren in this regional "sports" event. The news started at 11:00 PM CST, I was drunk by 11:30 PM CST. Now the reasoning behind having so many guns available to the general populace by most Texas is that it is their constitutional right and that the cops are a useless deter int when it comes to administering deadly force when necessary. Ironicly enough the officers of the law in Texas spend most of their time investigating or dealing with the after math that of their "volunteer honorary officers" decision making skills rather than actually pro actively stopping crime. I believe this is the reason why the Government has decided not to give us each our own personal Nuclear Weapon in the name of a Constitutional right for proper civil level defense in the event of King George's zombie taking over the Judiciary Branch.

Oh and the lovely "Spanish" Culture in Texas. I used to believe that minorities now appreciate their precious civil right that they have fought so hard to obtain in predominantly Anglo Saxon dominated society. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I was eating breakfast at one of the many local Mexican Restaurants and over heard a conversation in the adjacent table. Now bear in mind all of the people are Latin American in origin, also keep in mind that I am the only white person in this entire resturant.
The topic of the conversation was how just recently "blacks" have moved into their apartment complex and how the presence of this ethnicity has been brining in large amounts of crime and how their should be a policy in place that all African Americans should undergo a criminal background check in the event that they would like to rent in the same apartment complex as Latin Americans. At this point I almost threw my breakfast taco directly at the women making the comments.

I no longer question how the President of the United States is as incompetent as he is, its not his fault people! Spend some time in Texas , breath in the air , but be careful, oh be so very careful. All these and many things have lead me to believe that Texas is a breeding ground for assholes. They must come from somewhere and I believe I have found that place.

I miss you all!

Current Mood: contemplative

So today was a reverent experience. I was told by some people at work that there was a bar down here in San Antonio that would show the Steelers games , so being that my cable package did not offer a way for me to see the game today against the Browns I decided to give it a shot.

So I found this place called "Charlie Browns" and google maps directed me on how to get there. I packed into the the car and surprisingly did not get lost, due to my amazing super awesome wife =). I opened the door to the bar hoping that the game was not on one of the super small screens in a dark corner of the bar thinking how much I miss home.

As I walked in and first glimpsed the bar, the only thing I can compare it to was like seeing heaven, in the middle of the bar projected on the wall with a high definition digital projector was the game , and in the center of the bar was a sea of Pittsburgh Steelers jerseys and terrible towels. Suppressing the tears I walked up the bar and asked if they had Iron City beer , and with a twinkle in her eyes the bar tender said there shipment would be in this Wednesday. At this point I thought I was drunk, dreaming, or dead. The bar-tender then asked me if I was a Steelers fan and without crying I said "yes , I am from Pittsburgh just moved here". At that moment the bartender who was the owner of the bar shouted out to the crowd that there was an authentic "Pittsburger" in the bar and immediately everyone in the center of bar cheered and asked me to sit with them , and so many people bought me beers I lost count, people were asking me what some of the Nick names of the players were in the city, if I knew who Frank o Harris was, it was so fucking amazing!

I sat with people who didn't know me from Adam who treated me as their brother , cheering with passion as the Steelers beat the Browns into submission with a 34 to 7 final score, and drinking ice cold beer.

It was a slice of heaven in Texas.

The bar plays every Steeler game throughout the season and already I have a list of names and phone numbers of people who are expecting me next Sunday and who have intermittent Steelers party's throughout the year.

Even now it is hard to fight back the tears as I am typing this, if I ever doubted it I now know with certainty that there is a God!

Current Mood: ecstatic

Click Here for Shinobi Baby!
The newest addition to the hidden leaf village! Beware of his dreaded "Poo-Poo Jitsu!"

=D

So I was browsing through YouTube and found what I think is a great Evil Dead Trilogy music video. I love the beat and the timing of almost all the cut-scenes. Enjoy!

Current Mood: chipper

I GOT A 97% on my RHCE for REIL 5 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5) !!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

*does happy dance*

This pleases me greatly because there are three levels of certification when it comes to Red Hat , the RHCT (Red Hat Certified Technician) , RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer), and RHCA (Red Hat Certified Architect).

Next on the plate is my RHCA! This one requires 4 seperate classes each with their own exam , so you have to pass class Stage1-4 with a 90% pass rate to get RHCA , so that will prove to be a challenge.

The next big step for me this year is passing my L3 exam, there are three levels of technicians at Rackspace, currently I am an L2 and need to pass the L3 test for a promotion and this test is know for being VERY difficult. So we will see how I do on that in December.

But currently I have a FOUR day weekend! BAM! I took Tuesday off so I am looking forward to some serious chillen time this weekend.

Things here are going very well, I miss all yinz! Started watching Death Note and am almost done with the series, so far I really like it. Finally got caught up on Bleach and Naruto Shippuden , I dont think Sakura could get any sexier! That and Sasuri is pretty bad ass , I am really starting to have more respect for the puppet technique. And good Lord I know it was a filler eps but watching Hitsugayi play soccer to a violin rendition of the Bleach theme was incredible =D! Anyway I am looking forward to when Ichigio masters his inner hallow.

I hope all is going well with you my friends , talk to you again soon!

Current Mood: accomplished

It has been the impression of several of my friends that I should start writing down the events of my life for a T.V sitcom. The past couple days have proven this to me and I have labeled each event an "episode" with an associated title.

*Episode 82:b "The Workout *
So I have been trying to get back in shape, every other day I am going to the GYM and lifting.
I was sitting in the GYM minding my own when a rather elderly gentleman wearing a ratty pair of pants with a white t-shirt with BBQ stains on it and coke bottle glasses. Now this would have been so bad, since I got no problem with the retired population of Texas. However this man walked right up to me about 3 feet from my face when I got up to change the wieght and said "Im a resident" and the conversation went something like this:

Joe: "... ... ... good for you, this is nice apartment complex"

Old man: " I own my own candle business"

Joe: "... *wierd out meter at 4* .. really thats ... thats awesome"

At this point the old man sat down on the wieght bence and started pumping out sets with no weight on it at all , during this time he kept say "oh yeah now I can feel the burn"

Joe: "ummm , you done , I would like to finish my set"

Old man: sure go ahead

*joe sits down and starts lifting, the old man then starts feeling my arms while I am lifting*

Joe: "What the FUCK Grandpa, get your damn hands OFF me!"

Old man: "Its ok , IT's OK , I'm a resident!"

At this point I grabbed my water bottle and walked out and now each time I go to the gym there is a slight sense of fear that the creepy old man will be waiting for me .. ... .. with pop sickles!

*Epsisode 1011 "God dammit Joe, think before you speak!" *

At one point Atticuss was up very late with an upset tummy so I had little to no sleep at all.
I then went into work and realized that if I was having a hard time speaking over the phone perhaps I should be remoting into people servers as the super user. So I then called my boss and the conversation went something like this:

Joe: "Hi Cathy, this is Joe. I am really out of it , I got about 2 hours of sleep last night and think I need to take a sick day off to recover"

Cathy: "Thats fine go ahead! Get some rest and I hope Atticuss is feeling better"

NOTE: This is Joe's FEMALE BOSS on the phone please keep that in my mind when reading my next statement

Joe: "Thanks Cathy , I dont know what wrong with him , do you want him? *laughs* If you ever want a baby just let me know.

Cathy: .... .... ....

*In Joe's mind "oh FUCK , I didnt just say that!*

Joe: See ya tommorow Cathy

Cathy: *laughs* Bye


*Episode 21E "Sendmail baby" *

Another night when I was sleeping after Atticuss decided to finally doze off after hours of screaming I was awoken by wife asking me to change his diaper while she went to the restroom. The conversation went like this:

Amy: "Joe, Joe Psssttt, can you change Atticuss"

Joe: ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz

Amy: "Joe??"

*Amy then shakes Joe*

Joe: "Huh WHAT? WHERE?

Amy: Can you change Atticuss diaper please"

Joe: "Did you restart the sendmail service on the server?"

Amy: "... ... ... What?"

Joe: "The /etc/aliases file did you check it?"

Amy: "What the hell are you talking about?"

Joe: "I dont know" *ZZZZZzzzzzz*

So that its folks , I cant tell you if future episodes will be good or bad but I found the last couple of days to be pretty amusing down here in Texas. Take care my friends , talk to you soon.
Totin , OUT.

Current Mood: awake

*Sigh* Trying so hard not to be sad after such an awesome time *Sigh*

So Otakon this year was a blast, getting down there not so much fun since I had up to 6 hours in flight delays *shakes fist at sky* "Damn you Delta!". Once there however I did get to see my childhood friend of old Ben and do some serious driking with him in the fine city of Pittsburgh, and as anyone who knows Ben and I , there was a large consumption of bevarages at just about every bar on Carson street! =D

The trip down to Baltimore was indeed much fine, after the hangover subsided that is, and I got to ride in the car with my awesome peeps Josh, Mitch, and a new accuantiance Dave. Dave proved to be an awesome guy with a quiet but sharp wit that for some reason reminded me of a clone of Kurt Vonnegut combined with Bender from Futurama. We discussed many thing on the trip up and back including how Mitch brother Patrick would react to discovering that a house was made entriely of Oreos.

The LARP this year did not meet my expectation but I had fun none the less. The problem was I played a charatcer that none of the GM's knew (Chief of Staff of the Ground Defense Force). This character had no fighting ability and his playability came from his political amd military strenght that was best manifested in his special abilities that the GM's kept regulary mis-reading and then would not attempt to listen to me when I pointed out otherwise. I am sympathetic to these men since they have such an enormous amount of players who I imagine are always arguing symantics with them , as many RP gamers do, so I can see how they have built up
an intolerance to discussing character powers, but at the same time they crippled the characters playability with their ineptitude. I good part about this years LARP was Linda got to GM, and she and Ben were pretty much the only redeming thing to this years game/story direction, for the love of God Linda dont ever leave the LARP as a GM or we will be LOST!

I have a great time seeing all my old peeps and chillen with them, I have to say I really missed all you guys and spending the weekend with all you was a blast! It was very sad for me actually leaving Vics and getting on the plance back to San Antonio. I cant wait till I come back down for the holidays in December to see all you guys again. I have to say this years trip to Otakon really reminded me of how unique and awesome all my peeps PA are. I think this years best quote was "Joe , Tim needs you to change him into a Magical Girl!" =D And oh good God the PopTop game was border line inneffable! God bless and keep Luffy Dan for inventing such an amazing game, the grand finale this year was like a rainbow of pure Joy was ejaculating on prking lot!

In other news I just had my 6 month review here at Rackspace and it went very very well. I was asked to start training some of the L1 technicians to prepare them for the L2 exam, and we just had our first meeting this Thursday and it went very well. I dont know much but I am really hoping I can help these awesome group of guys at work with passing this upcoming exam.

The baby is doing great as is the wife. Let me tell you Wonder-woman has nothing on my wife! This amazing lady was in labor for 13 hours with no medication and within a week has lost 20 lbs and is up on her feet as if nothing had happened, and as if that wasnt enough she is breat feeding the little guy at all hours of the night. I try to get up and help out as much as I can.

The trip back was great and my kids were very excited to see all the cool swag I brought home. The cooles thing this year was I got an Ed and All figure for ten bucks each, and an awesome stuffed Mario Brother mushroom!

Also I am almost caught up on Naruto and Bleack! Eeeee!

Anyway I will talk to you guys and gals soon. Peace!

Current Mood: chipper

Yeah I finally got the Internet! Now I can download anime and stream illegal copies of movies, oooohh yeah.. So yes the t power of the Internet has been harnessed in the Totin household, at a bitching 8Mbps download rate and an additional 25.00-buck VoiceIP package that makes my long distance cell phone bills a thing of the past! =D

So update time. We now have a kitten, a cute small orange kitten, named ‘Tiger’. The affirmation of my decision to purchase said kitten occurred when I had just poured myself a tall glass of Guinness Stout and the kitten from across the room sprinted over to my location on the coach and proceeded to lick the black frothy surface of beer and purr as if in Nirvana. I quickly informed the cat that to take the sip of another mans beer is considered a Human taboo, and the cats should drink beer, of which he response was to fart on me, a really nasty kitten fart. So I think made the right choice when I picked this one from out of the eight at the store, he is a kitten after my own heart.

So the wife has taken up a new hobby here in Texas. So when you step out onto our porch in the new apartment you see to the right. Of us the three story two bedroom apartments, there are several porches the patrons have decorate with al type of white trash memorabilia, but the thing that catches your eye the most is the mean “ I want to eat your face and rape babies” Pit bull on the porch on the third floor. My wife being a dog lover thinks the animal is “cute”, her warped since of aesthetics finally explains the mystery why she agreed to marry me. However, my wife thinks this cute animal is to “skinny” and the owners are not feeding him enough food. My solutions was to cal the human society if she was so concerned and report the animal so they could investigate and possibly help the abused death machine. “Oh no, no no. I don’t want to do that” says the wife “I don’t want to appear nosey”, this to me is pretty funny in and of itself, but it gets better! So the wives solution is between the hours of 9:45 PM and 10:30 PM under the cover of darkness, to hurl assorted lunchmeats onto the porch of the possibly abused Pit Bull, the only problem with this master plan is … … … she often misses the top porch. So my wife has not become the crazy lady who is throwing baloney on my neighbor’s porches. The landlord was not pleased with the reports of chunks of stink Oscar Myer
Being mysteriously delivered to the patios of the patrons in Apartment complex 1B, so when I got the call asking me to refrain from throwing lunchmeat on the other patron’s patios I almost fucking pissed myself to death I was laughing so hard!!! The landlord did not share in my amusement.

So the job down here is going great. I am really enjoying working with high-end Red-Hat Enterprise servers and fine tuning my knowledge of all things Linux. I am steadily becoming more of a Postfix fan rather than a Qmail. I got my own “Racker server”, a 2U dual Centron with 60 GB SCSI drives of space on RAID 1 from Rackspace since I am passed my four-month marker. One of the things I am going to be doing is starting my own private hosting company for family and friends, so if you guys can find a domain that is cool and not registered let me know cause I can setup free web hosting and e-mail services for you. Also please let me know if any of your or your family or friends is looking for a job, the big wigs down here at Rackspace are going though a hiring spurt
and if you send me your resumes I can guarantee an interview. The positions that are open are for an entry level Linux System Administrator, and a Level 2 Linux System Administrator. Please send an e-mail to joseph.totin@rackspace.com if you interested.

Well I am looking forward to seeing all you peeps at Otakon this year. I am counting the days. I miss all you guys and ladies, I wont lie to you its been very hard at times being so far away from my friends. Sometime I get really bored here and think why don’t I cant hop in a car and go chill with Brandon, Tim, and Vic, and then I realize they are 26 hours of driving time away. =( So I miss all you peeps, and when I come up to visit for Otakon we will be doing some serious partying! Look forward to seeing you all soon and staying in touch a bit more efficiently now that I have de Internet.

God Bless ladies and gents, talk to you soon. =D

-Totin

Current Mood: chipper

Wow, I was sitting here and all the linux techs just earned a random KEG OF BEER to celebrate a good month!
WTF OMFG BBQ AWESOMESAUCE! This is incredible!!
Eeeeeeeeeeee

Current Mood: drunk

Well Folks! I AM ALIVE! I am sorry for not posting or calling my peeps sooner but it has been an INSANE month. For starters as soon as I got here it been one incredible ticket after another, andI dont mean that as sarcasm this place ROCKS. I am learning from some of the best Hackers in the world on how to secure boxes , one of the guys here actually took down half of PA's DNS servers on a dialup account!!! its been incredible, as soon as I got her as well after work and on weekend they have me going to RHCE classes to take the exam on March 20th. Know I know why so many Rackspace Technicians get high score on the RHCE test , its because the pre-class and mock exams Rackspace gives are so evil it makes God himself say “shit thats evil” =D.
The wife is doing great, she is very pregnant, we are going to
find out if its a boy or a girl in the next week. Zoe and Nathan also are doing great, they have made some new friends at school and are adjusting very very well.

Still miss you guys a lot though, missing night of anime and pop, wings at Little Joe's, and just hanging with Vic, Brandon, and Tim.
As soon as you guys want to come down let me know, there is always a place for you and I will gladly help out with the plane tickets. Also I would like to come up to PA sometime soon here and chill. Getting Internet access at the new place this Friday so I wil be on aim then.
This is the first actual lunch break I have had at my desk with enough time to edit my live journal!

Tonight is handle bar mustach and bowling night, its where a bunch of the techs here get together , let their beards grow for about two weeks then shave to handle bar mustaches and drink while bowling! These are my kinda people =)

Look forward to keeping in touch with you guys! Miss Ya!

Current Mood: busy