tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53640752009-10-20T13:45:44.193-04:00Detailing the personal lives of the family Hess and their glorious and luxurious destiny. By Roland HessRolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.comBlogger262125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-38547379932371161572009-10-06T13:24:00.000-04:002009-10-06T13:24:25.420-04:00

This has been my screen backround off and on for a while. No reason that I should be the only one to bask in its glory. Poor Piper.

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-6563059751869322122009-08-23T08:04:00.001-04:002009-08-23T08:05:55.991-04:00

Did you know that if you're driving along on a beautiful day and the Scorpions' Rock You Like A Hurricane comes on the radio, the car turns up the volume and drives faster all by itself?A mystery, that.

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-81808292493187652442009-07-10T10:12:00.003-04:002009-07-10T10:20:33.238-04:00

Oh, it is to laugh.You'd think someone in the spirit world would have had a clue.It's like:A police station getting robbed.A bank manager having to file for personal bankruptcy.Symantec getting taken down by a virus.But the beauty of having something really bad happen to a psychic/fortune teller/etc. is that anything bad that happens to them at all, regardless of category, fits the bill and makes

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-2715791858808588672009-06-10T08:55:00.002-04:002009-06-10T09:04:30.632-04:00

The pond across the road is kind of yucky. It's shallow, greenish, and sports those water lilies that look nice in Impressionist paintings but make you want to scrub yourself with a Brillo pad in real life. A pair of ducks makes an appearance every now and then, which is fine. I like ducks, both as observable wildlife, and shredded and fried in a Thai salad. There is also a beaver. Probably a

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-11389001475679809412009-05-29T22:46:00.002-04:002009-05-29T22:53:43.769-04:00

If you've read The Hess Report for a while, you'll know that I occasionally brew beer. For some reason, I've always messed up somehow or other at the bottling stage, which resulted in a substandard final product. It probably goes back to not doing well in labs in high school. Oh well. My options were:Give up brewingContinue to make semi-crummy beerSkip the bottle and go straight to the kegKegging

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-80037874066876195382009-04-20T19:44:00.002-04:002009-04-20T19:49:30.875-04:00

This article reminded me of one of my rules of pet ownership. I usually say it as a joke, but really I'm kidding on the square. The rule?Don't own a pet that you couldn't kill with your bare hands if you had to.Of course, the level of empty-handed lethality will vary from person to person, so there's nothing to say what kind of pet you personally can or cannot have. Pee Wee Herman gets a snail.

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-72535792301041211852009-04-17T12:52:00.001-04:002009-04-17T12:57:33.253-04:00

The soda machine at work is conducting psych experiments.A soda costs 60 cents. I have a quarter and four dimes (65 cents). When I put in my money, the machine says "Please use correct change," which means that it doesn't have proper change to dispense. Fine. I push the coin return button so I can bug our accountant to switch my one dime for two nickels.Clinkety clink. The money falls into the

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-85714603368659371682009-03-09T13:10:00.001-04:002009-03-09T13:11:48.131-04:00

The hard drive of our main file server at work died last night around 2 a.m., sending about 80GB of precious work-in-process data into the ether.Did I freak?No. Because I keep backups. Twenty-one days worth, with a full backup every ten and incrementals in between. Yeah, it took several hours to acquire a new HD and load all the data back into it, but it was all there.Why am I writing this? I'm

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-14637556793583919532009-02-27T10:08:00.003-05:002009-02-27T10:13:11.824-05:00

It used to be that when people would ask me about making a tech purchase, I would send them to Circuit City. And when I found myself in the infrequent position of making a tech purchase in a brick and mortar store (as opposed to ordering from Amazon, NewEgg or Dell) I shopped "dumb" as a service to my friends and family. I pretended I didn't really know what I needed, and evaluated both the

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-20535184501018853622009-02-23T12:12:00.003-05:002009-02-23T22:09:02.245-05:00

On Sunday, Lucy had an Irish dancing gig at a local ethnic festival. We were there about forty-five minutes before she went on stage, so Maddie and I decided to hop across the road to Home Depot to grab a few specialty light bulbs and price some paint. After snagging the bulbs, we wandered around for a couple of minutes on our way to the paint swatches. Maddie noted the toilets on sale ($78!) and

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-68815365938367208122009-02-02T11:00:00.002-05:002009-02-02T13:10:01.055-05:00

It's hard to describe what it feels like to be a Pittsburgher the day after what sports writers are already calling the greatest game the Superbowl has ever seen. Forget about all the ups and downs of the first three quarters. Forget about James Harrison's unbelievable interception and touchdown run back. Although, can you forget about it? Here's this guy who keeps getting cut and finally works

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-53339953978094229352009-01-13T09:24:00.003-05:002009-01-13T09:34:44.924-05:00

Now that Shrimpo has met his doom in a landfill somewhere, it's safe to start writing again. I was worried for a while that he was going to extend his shrimpy voodoo influence over world events, but fortunately I was wrong. Oh, he tried for sure, but we were able to defeat him with our iron wills, a helpful hand from Mr. T. (you've not lived until you've heard T shout "Enough jibber-jabber!" at a

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-19368180887270161392009-01-01T18:21:00.002-05:002009-01-01T18:33:44.894-05:00

Last night, a new force was brought into the world. Meet Shrimpo the Terrible (click for full size):He may have been constructed from two shrimp tails and several plastic football-themed hor-dourves skewers, with a piece of green pepper for a head, but much like Frosty the Snowman, when Shrimpo came to life and started kicking butt at 80's Trivial Pursuit during our New Years party, we knew that

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-79857922748662143222008-12-31T17:44:00.001-05:002008-12-31T17:46:21.009-05:00

A Haiku for the New Year:In how many yearsWill they be beyond your reach?Don't wait -- hug them now.

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-52313282453406318232008-12-16T08:39:00.001-05:002008-12-16T08:40:47.288-05:00

It's only a year old, so it doesn't really qualify as a "classic," but here's the stop motion the girls and I made last year: Merry Christmas!

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-73482429990596078172008-12-04T08:09:00.003-05:002008-12-04T09:02:02.715-05:00

I was told back in my days in Penn's writing program that the tools you use to do the actual work of writing can dramatically affect what you write. This may seem strange to non-writers who would tend to think: the story's the story, isn't it? It turns out that writing long-hand (i.e., pen and paper) produces a certain word count for a particular topic or scene. Writing from the exact same

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-32976307556760609212008-12-03T08:12:00.003-05:002008-12-03T08:29:31.328-05:00

In the mornings, I cruise into the city via the Parkway North, get off at the East Street exit, cut through a couple blocks of the North Side, cross the 16th street bridge, go up the Strip and there I am. It's not the bad part of the North Side, so it's not like I drive through there with locked doors and clenched teeth. Until today.Why start to worry now? Crossing the street in front of me as I

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-37722598782423246452008-11-24T15:16:00.003-05:002008-11-24T15:24:21.706-05:00

I just met John Russo, co-writer with George Romero of Night of the Living Dead. Our company is printing a coloring book about bullying that himself and a collaborating artist are working on. We were talking a little about the project, and he jokingly suggested that eventually in the series, they'd equate bullies with zombies. I said (nay, was required to say by the laws of geekdom): "Funny you

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-39715909868212588102008-11-16T15:40:00.003-05:002008-11-16T16:02:24.402-05:00

When your kids are little, you play along with their silly games. If you have kids, you've done it, and if you don't have them yourself, then at least you've seen it done. The two year old playing hide and seek, "hiding" by putting their head under the couch while their butt sticks up in the air."Where are you?" coos the parent. "I can't find my little bubby-wubby."Right. Been there.As your kids

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-5472729128455201292008-11-13T12:35:00.002-05:002008-11-13T13:09:31.970-05:00

One of my co-workers turned me on to a site called abebooks.com. They are an aggregator of inventory information for used and specialty booksellers around the world. Just like Amazon marketplace or half.com, they just broker the sale itself, so, while you're ordering from them, the order actually goes to the third party bookseller who fulfills it.The thing I love about Abe is that you can easily

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-68276632593092263092008-11-11T22:54:00.002-05:002008-11-11T22:57:21.172-05:00

This morning, I was about to get into my car when I noticed a trinket one of the girls had dropped on the floor of the garage. I reached down to pick it up. I received an arm-pulsing static electric shock from the concrete floor. That's just freaking weird.Well, either that, or I'm developing electrical/lightning powers. That would be cool, unless it hurt like that every time you used them. Then

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-22890798173995232842008-10-09T13:17:00.001-04:002008-10-09T13:18:39.260-04:00

The things in this world of which I am jealous can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.This is one of them.

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-74612505035489938882008-09-15T10:11:00.002-04:002008-09-15T10:16:55.298-04:00

We had 70 mph winds here last night. Power went out at 9 pm and hasn't returned. There are trees down along our road, one pulling the utility lines to the ground. We might get power back today, but it might not be until tomorrow.It was bizarre standing outside last night. Heavy winds interspersed with those wild gusts... crashes and bangs in the distance as live wood split... dirt and dust

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-47221902584612954722008-09-02T14:13:00.002-04:002008-09-02T14:17:19.932-04:00

Words cannot express my heartfelt, complete endorsement of this ticket:Tigh/Roslin '08

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5364075.post-23138243623281632782008-09-02T08:16:00.003-04:002008-09-02T08:23:01.083-04:00

With Animating with Blender... about to start shipping, I've released the animation project that goes along with book for everyone to see. If you want to grab the high res downloads, you can go straight to the website: http://thebeast.harkyman.com.Otherwise, you can watch a lower resolution streaming version right here. I'd actually recommend that you watch the streaming HD version, which looks a

Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06416202433772605233noreply@blogger.com0