Andy Gibson » Personal

R.I.P. Ronnie James Dio

Andy Gibson — Mon, 17 May 2010 04:11:23 +0000

Ronnie James Dio died at 7:45am this morning after a 6 month battle with stomach cancer. Ronnie had performed in a number of bands, most notably with Black Sabbath taking over from Ozzy Osbourne and with his own band Dio. He embraced the mythological themes of metal with dragons, castles, swords, magic and damsels featuring heavily in the lyrics, videos, and stage shows. Back in the day there was a myth he had an English castle transported over to the US.
Not only was he the driving force behind a number of great albums and bands, but he was also a genuinely nice guy, heavily involved in the Children of the Night charity for teenage runaways. Recently appearing on The Metal Show, in the last 2 minutes of this clip Ronnie explained why he treats fans so well, after seeing the disregard Ritchie Blackmore had for fans.

After 20 years, this guy is still one of my favorite metal icons that embodies a large piece of what Heavy Metal means to me.

“We’re a ship without a storm
The cold without the warm
Light inside the darkness that it needs, yeah

We’re a laugh without a tear
The hope without the fear
We are coming – home”

- Last In Line

(One of the) Best Burgers Ever

Andy Gibson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:24:30 +0000

Believe it or not, but I find Applebees burgers to be the best burgers I have ever tasted! This may be heresy coming from a self confessed foodie, but hear me out. Usually, I find burgers from chains fairly throw away affairs, you get it, eat it, it’s hot, it probably has some nice toppings, and you’re done. However, I don’t know whether it is the new line of “Real Burgers” they started doing months ago or if they just started making them better, but their recent burgers, particularly the A1 Steakhouse burger is just fantastic.

It comes on a lightly toasted bun, on which they put a drop of tangy A1 sauce and a creamy mayonnaise type dressing and plenty of fried onion straws. Now, if they’ve done it properly the burger should have some pink to it but still be warm throughout and that is when you get a good juiciness to the burger. They’ve been a little bit inconsistent recently and not asked how I want the burger and sometimes I get it well done and other times I get it nice and pink-ish. Since they can’t decide on a default, just tell them you want it pink and warm throughout (medium as opposed to medium well).

When this thing arrives, you start by biting into the soft bun and then you plough through the onion straws which have a mildly crunchy fried texture and a slight sweetness from the onions. You then hit the soft mild (swiss?) cheese and the burger which is a patty of tender juicy beefiness with just the right crumbly texture to the burger and a juiciness that drips. In there somewhere is the tangyness of A1 which punctuates the other flavors now and again. These things are awesome and they are on the 2 for $20 menu (2 meals plus an appetizer for $20). I think they are grinding their meat fresh, and gently forming the patty so the meat doesn’t form into a tight beef puck which just gets tough.

Next time I plan on broadening my horizons and trying one of their other burgers (cowboy or cheese burger) to see if it is as good. The A1 burger doesn’t have bacon on it which normally should be an instant penalization, but regardless this burger is still so tasty. I used to have the cowboy burger (well done) but the toppings (onion rings, bacon and BBQ sauce) were tastier than the burger. I plan on trying it with the new improved burgers since perfect burger plus fantastic toppings could lead to an epic event!

(Update – 8th Feb 2010 – After taking my brother and Sister in law there, we found that a) They are thoroughly inconsistent, with the better burgers being the exception not the rule. b) Their service was crappy as they delivered appetizers, salad and the burgers in the space of 2 minutes after letting us wait for 10 minutes (Their problem, we planned on having a long meal and working our way through the cocktail menu). Also, they just got usurped by Michael Symon).

Christmas Hiatus Over

Andy Gibson — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:35:13 +0000

Well, 2009 is done with and we are plunging headlong into 2010. Being European, I like to take a good week off around Christmas and New Year and with relatives here for Christmas I haven’t spent much time on work or blogging. So for those that have sent emails, apologies for the delay and I’ll get back to you this week/weekend. I have a few posts lined up including part 3 of the CDI articles covering Events, I’ll probably do one introducing conversations and then I’ll start writing on creating some real world apps with JSF and CDI. If anyone has anything they’d like to see in these articles, let me know.

Also, I have a couple of food posts almost completed as Christmas was full of good food and recipes that inspired me to blog about it (Must have been watching Julie & Julia in the New Year that did it).

Happy New Year all!

New Blog Theme

Andy Gibson — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:38:35 +0000

Yes, I’ve done some decorating around here, well, actually I got the interior designers in as I didn’t write this theme. I have retired my own custom theme as I felt it wasn’t making the most of the features that Wordpress has to offer such as widgets and plugins.

This Carrington Framework Overview gives you an idea of some of the details that can go into making the best theme possible and right now I just don’t have the time to dedicate to my own theme to do it right. Instead, I have found myself a new theme and done some customization on it, and no doubt it will be tweaked in the days and weeks to come.

Hosting Changes

Andy Gibson — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:54:23 +0000

I’ve recently changed hosting providers which so far has been a royal pain in the backside. My old provider EasyCGI were fine when I started a year ago. Last fall, they underwent some changes in their platform and since then, their service has been patchy. I’m not alone this opinion as plenty of their users are miffed over the lack of quality since their platform shift.

From experience, their customer service is also pretty bad. After their switch, I ended up with another of their customers databases in my account. I could actually go into phpAdmin in my control panel, change the content of their database, go to their web site and see the change live. Obviously, I didn’t do anything harmful, I was just testing their screw up and the site was old, and there hadn’t been a post on the forum for years.

More to the point, my database was missing and had somehow not found its way into my account. I messaged their tech support and they claimed that I hadn’t set my security password hint and I was probably hacked. Of course, obviously someone hacked into my account, removed my database and put their database in it’s place for me to fiddle with, all on the same weekend that my hosting moved everything around . I had half a mind to call their bluff and ask them if I should email the feds about the matter but decided not to. I then wondered if someone less clued in than myself had found themselves in possession of my database and been told the same thing by EasyCgi and decided to take the issue up with the feds. I awaited the no-knock raid at any moment charged with forcing my nerdy ill-thought-out opinions onto the owner of KnittingCollectors.com.

Anyway, of the couple of times I had to deal with them, they were a bit pointless, and my site performance has been deteriorating since September last year and getting worse. So, since my contract was up next month, I decided to go shop around which is when my problems really started which I’ll discuss in part 2.

John Hughes Dead at 59

Andy Gibson — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:42:53 +0000

Wow, makes you feel old when the people that you grew up on start making headlines this way. He wrote, directed and produced a number of movies that define my generation by never forgetting his adolescent experiences that are common to all of us and putting them on celluloid. He set many of his movies where he grew up in Illinois which I think helps capture the spirit of his teen years where he experienced them.

About Me

Andy Gibson — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:10:24 +0000

FYI, I just updated my about page with my (mostly antique computing related) biography. You can find it here

Get your childhood geek on

Andy Gibson — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 17:46:06 +0000

Looks awesome,

Haitus and reflections

Andy Gibson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:43:32 +0000

Well, I’ve had family in town for the last couple of weeks, and since the Lost finale, I’ve been tied up and thus not posting. Normally people shouldn’t blog about blogging, but it’s my one year anniversary of both blogging and switching over to Ubuntu from Windows.
Taking a break was good as I tend to longer meatier posts (lost recaps or dev posts), and I still have a bunch I’m working on. My Seam vs Spring vs Wicket throwdown should be out this week. I have my procedural texture library I’ve just released, but I’m going to move it over to Maven before I make it really public. I have a few Seam articles written that need polishing which covers the pitfalls in Seam, mostly due to conversations. I’m also working on a JSF 2.0 and Web Beans article and it’s something I’ve started looking into. There could be some good stuff there. I really think I need to mix in some lighter articles just throwing a few thoughts in a post on the events of the day. I tend to miss out on posting about a lot of important news because I don’t have the time to write an essay when in fact, I shouldn’t really be writing an essay, just a few succinct notes. For example the Oracle purchase or Java One, and JSF 2.0 or Web Beans being finalized. So, in my second year of blogging, I shall strive to provide some more off the cuff content as well as wordier pieces.
Also, I’ve spent the last year using Ubuntu Linux after what I thought would be a temporary switch over. In the past, I have tried Linux, but found myself entertained (or perplexed and frustrated) for a few hours and then giving up and going back to Windows. However, my wife has even enjoyed the Linux experience and we’ve not had any problems. I’m looking for a new laptop and already trying to find one that is Linux friendly.

Sign Me Up For Glee Club

Andy Gibson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:31:27 +0000

I’m linking this vid as a must see. Not only is it a great song (Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing), but it is an awesome version of the song. I would say almost better than the original except for the band section in the middle which sounds synthesized, and a lack of rock edged guitar in a song which had very little to start with. The pilot for Glee was shown a few weeks ago, but the series won’t show until Fall. I found the show somewhat amusing, the stereotypes were a little forced and over the top but but I think it can be a hit if they pick their songs and their revamps right. This song was certainly a huge hit with viewers. It has been compared with High School Musical, which I don’t think is quite fair. This show seemed to be geared towards family as opposed to being a product of the tween targeting Disney machine, and it seems like it will contain a blend of serious drama elements. Regardless this song absolutely rocks!

Man, this video takes me back to choir and orchestra when I was at school.

(updated : Switched youtube link since the original was removed because of Fox claiming the copyright (even though you can get the episode online for free). The link (like many) now only has the music which is slightly different from the video version).

If you would like to see the extended trailer, you can see it here