Author Archive for kevin

more ENTP stuff

This shit is great… because for the most part, it’s totally me. Awesome.

ENTP Relationships

Typically good-natured, upbeat and laid-back, ENTPs can be delightful people to be around. They get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction from interacting with others, and especially enjoy discussing and debating theories and concepts which interest them. They may be prone to initiate arguments because they so enjoy the debate. They are generally fun-loving and gregarious, and can be quite charming. They have a problem with sometimes neglecting their close relationships when they become involved in the pursuit of a new idea or plan.

ENTP Strengths

● Enthusiastic, upbeat, and popular

● Can be very charming

● Excellent communication skills

● Extremely interested in self-improvement and growth in their relationships

● Laid-back and flexible, usually easy to get along with

● Big idea-people, always working on a grand scheme or idea

● Usually good at making money, although not so good at managing it

● Take their commitments and relationships very seriously

● Able to move on with their lives after leaving a relationship

ENTP Weaknesses

● Always excited by anything new, they may change partners frequently

● Tendency to not follow through on their plans and ideas

● Their love of debate may cause them to provoke arguments

● Big risk-takers and big spenders, not usually good at managing money

● Although they take their commitments seriously, they tend to abandon their

relationships which no longer offer opportunity for growth

ENTPs as Lovers

ENTP’s goals for their intimate relationships are similar to their other personal goals: improvement and growth. They constantly ask themselves questions such as: How can the relationship be improved? Where is the relationship headed? Am I growing in the relationship? They are likely to enthusiastically embrace new ideas and projects for themselves and their mates which they feel will propel them along their goal for growth and knowledge discovery. The ENTP’s general enthusiasm and good intentions are usually quite positive and healthful in a relationship.

A problem area for ENTP’s is their tendency to not follow through on their schemes. This can be frustrating to their mates. It may also create a “boy who called wolf” syndrome in their relationships, with their partner never believing that the ENTP will actually do what they say they’ll do.

Another potential problem area is the ENTP’s general tendency towards “wildness” and willingness to take risks. They may lead the family into uncomfortable financial situations, which can be quite stressful on intimate relationships.

Sexually, the ENTP is enthusiastic and interested in positive, constant growth for both partners. They’re likely to be very attentive, involved, and questioning. They enjoy spontaneity rather than fixed schedules, and fully embrace new ideas and adventures. They’re likely to approach intimacy as more of a physical act which conveys affection, rather than as an opportunity to explicitly express affection.

In general, ENTP’s childlike enthusiasm and genuine interest in the health and direction of the relationship makes them willing and able to promote healthy, growing relationships with their significant others. They need to watch out for their tendency to be unaware of what others are feeling, and to inadvertently neglect their relationships when faced with exciting possibilities that are external to their personal life.

Although two well-developed individuals of any type can enjoy a healthy relationship, ENTP’s natural partner is the INFJ, or the INTJ. The ENTP’s dominant function of Extraverted Intuition is best matched with a personality that is dominated by Introverted Intuition.

ENTPs as Parents

With their fun and upbeat natures, there’s a little bit of kid inside all ENTPs. They approach parenthood with a fun-loving attitude which has a serious underlying goal: to make everything a learning exercise (for themselves as well as for their children) which promotes the child’s growth into an independent, logical thinker.

The ENTP is likely to be somewhat inconsistent about spending quality time with their children. One minute they will exhibit a lot of interest and enthusiasm towards being around their kids, and will display a great deal of affection for them. However, as soon as they get caught-up in one of their grand schemes for improving a system somewhere, they’re likely to inadvertently neglect their kids.

ENTPs as Friends

ENTPs can get along with almost all other types of people. They are intuitive about what makes others tick, although they generally lack the ability to sympathize or relate to others who do not see things the same way as the ENTP. They are flexible and easy-going, and genuinely enjoy interacting with others.

Although the ENTP is able to get along with a wide variety of people, they are likely to choose to surround themselves with people who are intelligent, capable, and idea-oriented. They love nothing better than engaging in a good debate with someone who can hold their end of the conversation. This will stimulate and energize the ENTP, who is highly competitive and loves to discuss theories.

Sometimes the ENTP falls into the habit of practicing “one-upmanship”. If this goes unchecked, it may cause a problem with friendships and close interpersonal relationships.

so I’m an ENTP

As an ENTP, your primary mode of living is focused externally, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. Your secondary mode is internal, where you deal with things rationally and logically.

With Extraverted Intuition dominating their personality, the ENTP’s primary interest in life is understanding the world that they live in. They are constantly absorbing ideas and images about the situations they are presented in their lives. Using their intuition to process this information, they are usually extremely quick and accurate in their ability to size up a situation. With the exception of their ENFP cousin, the ENTP has a deeper understanding of their environment than any of the other types.

This ability to intuitively understand people and situations puts the ENTP at a distinct advantage in their lives. They generally understand things quickly and with great depth. Accordingly, they are quite flexible and adapt well to a wide range of tasks. They are good at most anything that interests them. As they grow and further develop their intuitive abilities and insights, they become very aware of possibilities, and this makes them quite resourceful when solving problems.

ENTPs are idea people. Their perceptive abilities cause them to see possibilities everywhere. They get excited and enthusiastic about their ideas, and are able to spread their enthusiasm to others. In this way, they get the support that they need to fulfill their visions.

ENTPs are less interested in developing plans of actions or making decisions than they are in generating possibilities and ideas. Following through on the implementation of an idea is usually a chore to the ENTP. For some ENTPs, this results in the habit of never finishing what they start. The ENTP who has not developed their Thinking process will have problems with jumping enthusiastically from idea to idea, without following through on their plans. The ENTP needs to take care to think through their ideas fully in order to take advantage of them.

The ENTP’s auxiliary process of Introverted Thinking drives their decision making process. Although the ENTP is more interested in absorbing information than in making decisions, they are quite rational and logical in reaching conclusions. When they apply Thinking to their Intuitive perceptions, the outcome can be very powerful indeed. A well-developed ENTP is extremely visionary, inventive, and enterprising.

ENTPs are fluent conversationalists, mentally quick, and enjoy verbal sparring with others. They love to debate issues, and may even switch sides sometimes just for the love of the debate. When they express their underlying principles, however, they may feel awkward and speak abruptly and intensely.

The ENTP personality type is sometimes referred to the “Lawyer” type. The ENTP “lawyer” quickly and accurately understands a situation, and objectively and logically acts upon the situation. Their Thinking side makes their actions and decisions based on an objective list of rules or laws. If the ENTP was defending someone who had actually committed a crime, they are likely to take advantage of quirks in the law that will get their client off the hook. If they were to actually win the case, they would see their actions as completely fair and proper to the situation, because their actions were lawful. The guilt or innocence of their client would not be as relevant. If this type of reasoning goes uncompletely unchecked by the ENTP, it could result in a character that is perceived by others as unethical or even dishonest. The ENTP, who does not naturally consider the more personal or human element in decision making, should take care to notice the subjective, personal side of situations. This is a potential problem are for ENTPs. Although their logical abilities lend strength and purpose to the ENTP, they may also isolate them from their feelings and from other people.

The least developed area for the ENTP is the Sensing-Feeling arena. If the Sensing areas are neglected, the ENTP may tend to not take care of details in their life. If the Feeling part of themself is neglected, the ENTP may not value other people’s input enough, or may become overly harsh and aggressive.

Under stress, the ENTP may lose their ability to generate possibilities, and become obsessed with minor details. These details may seem to be extremely important to the ENTP, but in reality are usually not important to the big picture.

In general, ENTPs are upbeat visionaries. They highly value knowledge, and spend much of their lives seeking a higher understanding. They live in the world of possibilities, and become excited about concepts, challenges and difficulties. When presented with a problem, they’re good at improvising and quickly come up with a creative solution. Creative, clever, curious, and theoretical, ENTPs have a broad range of possibilities in their lives.

Friends with Benefits!

Friends with BenefitsI have nothing more to add here, just enjoy the picture. And yes, I agree with it. :)

Wtf, women?

Disclaimer: These are generalizations and not steadfast rules. There ARE exceptions to what I say here, but for the most part, they’re true. Some of you may find this offensive and if you’re easily offended, please stop reading now. That being said, here goes my little rant for the week.

I mean, come on here… You’re really starting to frustrate me, and not for the reasons you might think. Listen, just because I make you cum doesn’t mean I have any feelings for you. Seriously. Physical and emotional are two entirely different things and don’t have jack shit to do with one another as far as I’m concerned. I feel about as much emotional attachment to a girl I’m fucking as I do my Xbox 360. That’s not to say I don’t feel any sort of emotional attachment to ANY girl I get physical with…. just that I’m perfectly able to abstract the physical and keep it purely on that level without any sort of other attraction. I have sex because it’s something I enjoy doing. Like playing video games, watching TV, riding a bike, listening to music. Same thing. Something fun and interesting to do. Not because I give a shit about “sharing something special” or whatever horseshit reason you want to throw out there. I LIKE making a girl cum. It’s fun. But just like I won’t watch a movie that looks shitty or play a video game that looks like it sucks horribly, I’m not going to just stick it to any girl I can get my hands on. But seriously, if I fuck you, take it at face value. Don’t presume there may be some underlying meaning or feeling. I’m fucking you because, for whatever reason (don’t ask because it doesn’t really matter by the way), I feel like making you cum. If I don’t TELL you I think you’re beautiful, amazing, etc. then I don’t think it. If I don’t imply that I feel some sort of “connection” or “attachment” to you, then I don’t. Don’t take the fact that I’m buried balls-deep in your snatch to mean anything other than I wanted to have sex with you. I realize you women are programmed to believe that being physical with someone is supposed to be “special” or “mean something”. I’m sorry but that’s just not how I’m programmed. I’m simple in that respect. Physical and emotional are entirely separate. They can be present together (and are at times too) but are by no means dependent on one another. Simple. I don’t get attached. Don’t expect me to. If you draw your own fucked up conclusions in your pretty little head based on my actions alone then that’s not my problem. Trust me, it’s far more than blatantly obvious which category you fall into with me if you’re a woman. Case in point? If there are pictures of us making out in public, that’s a pretty good indicator that you’re a little more than just some chick I’m banging. But whatever. Women have this god-awful habit of making assumptions and trying to draw conclusions when they really shouldn’t be doing so. Then they get their feelings hurt when they find out they’re wrong. Boo-fucking-hoo.

Suse 11 + KDE 4.1

Ok, so neither of them have been officially released, thus putting me REALLY on the bleeding edge, but holy shit I’m in love. Suse 11 has run amazingly well; every bit as well as my previous Ubuntu 8.04 installation. Suse seems to have better administration tools and more up-to-date packages. Plus I love how easy it is to add new repositories to the software management tool. Hell, the repo management tool even has a listing of third party repositories you can add from the app itself. Makes it super-easy to add new software to your system without going around the web hunting for it to install. Suse’s package management tool (Yast2) even makes instaling new software incredibly easy! It works as well as Ubuntu’s Synaptic tool from my experience so far. I don’t see any major showstopping problems so far with the 11.0 beta of Suse. I haven’t had any unexpected crashes that are specific to Suse. Everything for the most part “just works”. Suse apparently also does some of their own customizations to both Gnome & KDE along with installing their own bootsplash and login screen. All of which lend to a very “clean” look that most other distributions just can’t match up to. Also for what it’s worth, the binary fglrx driver from ATI’s site worked great, installed without a hitch. Compiz and desktop effects in KDE4 work without issue. Suspend and resume work great as well. This is on a Lenovo T60 with a Radeon X1300. Very nice!

As far as KDE 4.1 beta 1 goes, I’m actually quite impressed. The 4.0.x series seems to be lacking a bit of functionality from the 3.5.x series, but even the KDE group admits that. 4.1 seems to be a bit more polished overall. Installing new desktop themes and wallpapers is as easy as right clicking on the desktop and choosing “desktop settings” and then either clicking “New Wallpaper” to download and install new wallpapers from kde-look.org or “New Theme” to do the same for themes. The nice part is that instead of launching a browser and making you download a file and then importing it into the application or extracting it to a directory (and having to know WHICH directory to use), you just pick the one you like and click “install” and it’s immediately available. Sweet! The panel can now be transparent, which has very little functional use but sure does look beautiful. Kopete (the IM client) looks really nice now and actually supports flie transfers on AIM (this was introduced with 4.0, actually). Works as well as Pidgin and looks a ton better. It also *seems* to support video on Yahoo, though I haven’t tested it yet. Konqueror seems to work pretty well for most everything I throw at it. I’ve even managed to get it working with gmail’s full view by changing the user agent in the options to Mozilla 1.7.3. At any rate, I’m still exploring but I can’t help but be very impressed with it so far. I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back to Gnome at this point. :)

Money can’t buy happiness?

Bullshit! Whoever said that apparently never had much money. Maybe I’m superficial… or maybe I’m just a fucking asshole (quite likely) but money makes me VERY happy. Well, maybe not money in and of itself but definitely transforming my money into “stuff”. Booze, random trips to cool places, expensive food, expensive electronic gear, yeah. It all makes me VERY happy and none of it can be had without money. So I guess for ME, money buys happiness. All the fucking time. When I don’t have money, I’m sad. When I have money I’m happy. In most cases my happiness is inversely proportional to the amount of money in my bank account. The exception there being when I’ve spent a large sum of money on any of the things that make me even happier than the money itself does. Perfect example was income tax return time. I had close to 3 grand in my bank account at one point. Well, I bought a brand new home theater receiver, some new speakers and paid off a couple of bills. At that point, I was virtually broke (by my standards) but immensely happy. Within the next month or so I’m going to buy a new TV… You can bet your ass I’ll be happier than fuck when that happens. Again, I’ll be low on funds but for good reason. I’ll have a big fucking TV in my living room. More geek stuff, more happy Kevin. Let’s be realistic here. Money might be “the root of all evil” but it’s also invariably the root of much of our happiness. Trust me, do you think those fuckers in Africa dying of AIDS, malaria, starvation and whatever other third-world problems are happy being without money? Doubtful! Now their fat-cat government offiicals who have plenty of money are probably happy as hell. They have money, food, nice houses and power. Money = happiness…. prove me wrong, someone!

Squeezebox Duet

I MUST own one! Period. Seeing as how I listen to music pretty constantly at home on my home theater system, it only makes sense for me to have one. Normally I just plug my laptop in and stream music from my desktop to my laptop and then connect my laptop into the back of my home theater system. While it works quite well it requires my laptop to be within 5 or so feet of my receiver. The squeezebox duet solves that problem rather nicely. It connects to my wifi network and connects to a server running on my desktop PC with all my music on it and plays it through my receiver. Even better, it connects via optical-digital so the sound quality is better. It comes with an ipod-like remote to control the music, setup playlists and the like. Not only does it play nearly every format known to mankind as long as it doesn’t have DRM (none of my music does) it also supports Rhapsody & Pandora along with shoutcast radio stations. Sounds pretty fucking sweet if you ask me! $400? Absolutely worth it! Check the picture:

great night for sure

I must admit I had a pretty damn good last night. I just got paid so I was like “I’m gonna go barhopping”. Normally I stay home on Friday nights and if I do go out it’s to Sapphire. I decided to change it up a little bit for some reason last night. I started out at Downtown Grille & Brewery for some food. I watched the Red Wings beat the Predators in overtime and then took off down to the Old City to start the fun. I walked around a little bit and went to Crown & Goose first. I get there and immediately run into someone I work with and her husband. Weird… so I hung out with her for awhile, had two shots of tequila and a jagerbomb. While there, I ran into someone I went to HS with. I haven’t seen the girl in literally 15 years and didn’t recognize her. The girl I worked with was the one that actually told me who she was and I was rather shocked to randomly run into someone from THAT long ago.

After Crown & Goose, I went to Urban Bar. It was my first time there as well and I was actually pleasantly surprised. First, the bartenders were seriously hot as fuck. BIG plus in my book. I had 6 jagerbombs and a surfer on acid there. I ran into an old friend named Eddie I used to work with at Cendant 8 years ago. What the fuck? Running into weird random people from my past! What gives? Anyway, so I’m hanging out there and my friend Jessica texts me and tells me she’s going to come hang out with me there. Well, by this point I was considering leaving and going to Sapphire. So I decide to stay there for awhile and she comes by to hang out for a bit. We do a jagerbomb and then I do another and she has a shot of tequila. After that point, I was going to just have her drop me off at Sapphire, but she wanted me to go with her to the barcade. I’m like “alright, whatever” and went with her.

We get to the “barcade” and I actually drank a fucking BEER! I don’t drink beer but dude talked me into drinking some “Dead Guy Ale”. Mind you it wasn’t awful but it was still beer. $4 a bottle is a bit much but at least it didn’t taste like horse piss. Played a few old school video games, finished up my beer and Jessica drove me home. Overall, nothing earth-shattering but still a great night. Ran into a few interesting people, got to hang out with a friend I don’t see too often and got really drunk. No hangover, to boot! Nothing to complain about. :)

Macbook Pros are WAY overpriced

Seriously… Holy shit. Compared to every other manufacturer on earth, they hideously overpriced. Not to mention they charge an exorbitant amount for upgrades. $400 for 4GB RAM? Are you shitting me? I can get two 2GB SODIMM’s for under $100 easily. But the thing that kills me is that even compared to a Lenovo T61p, it’s ridiculously overpriced! I understand that part of the allure is the OS and the overall “look and feel” of the machine. But is it worth $500? I seriously doubt that. Just look at the comparison I did rather quickly.

We’ll start with a nicely configured 15.4″ Macbook Pro.

2.5Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 (6MB L2 cache)

2GB RAM (2×1GB)

NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 256MB

200GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive

15.4″ 1440×900 LCD

8x DVD+/-R/DL

Integrated Bluetooth & A/B/G/N wifi

60W/hr Lithium Ion Battery (no word on how many cells)

Admittedly, it’s a beautiful piece of machinery and does have both the LED-backlit display and the muti-touch interface. However, it’s insanely expensive. Now let’s compare to a Lenovo T61p:

Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5Ghz (6MB L2 cache)

2GB (2×1GB) RAM 

Nvidia QuadroFX 570M 256MB

200GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive

15.4″ WUXGA+ (1920×1280) LCD

8x DVD+/-R/DL

Integrated Bluetooth & 802.11a/b/g/n wifi

7.8A/hr 9-cell Lithium Ion Battery

Windows Vista Business x64.

All this for a grand total of $2143.20… In order to match the Macbook Pro’s price, I would have to reconfigure the Lenovo with 4GB RAM, a Lenovo USB webcam and a 2yr Onsite/9×5 next business day warranty. Adding the webcam brings it back in-line with the feature set of the Macbook Pro except for the multi-touch interface. But still. Why is Apple so insanely expensive? Adding 4GB RAM and AppleCare to the Macbook Pro and changing the Lenovo to 3yrs to match the AppleCare makes the tally $3298 for the Macbook (!!!!) and $2596.16 for the Lenovo. I love the Macbook Pro, don’t get me wrong… but holy SHIT that’s a lot of money. I realize that if you configured them both with 2GB it’s a little closer in price ($2443 for the Lenovo and $2898 for the Apple). I guess you’re paying for the look of it.. along with the OS.. and the cache of owning an Apple product. Whatever. Way too much money if you ask me. 

Economic stimulus, bitches!

Well, from the looks of it, I’m getting my “economic stimulus payment” on May 16 based on the last two digits of my social security #. Here’s the breakdown for those that are curious:

  • 00-20 May 2
  • 21-75 May 9
  • 76-99 May 16

That’s just for those that had their returns directly deposited. For those that get paper checks, you stand to wait considerably longer than that. Here’s the breakdown for those:

  • 00-09  May 16
  • 10-18  May 23
  • 19-25  May 30
  • 26-38  June 6
  • 39-51  June 13
  • 52-63  June 20
  • 64-75  June 27
  • 76-87  July 4
  • 88-99  July 11

In any case, I already know where my $600 is going. A brand new TV! As I’ve said before I’m eyeballing the Toshiba Regza series. I’m pretty sure I’m going LCD since I can’t afford a Panasonic or Pioneer plasma. I also get an extra payday in May, which will further help out the finances for my new TV. Problem is, I still want a squeezebox so I might have to skimp a tad bit on the TV to fit that into my budget. In any case, I’ll be getting some nice stuff in a month or two and I’m a little more than mildly excited. I’m pretty sure that’s what the government had intended when they decided to send these checks out. :)