Korean barbecue is the laziest form of cuisine in the world. You're given a plate full of raw meat, and a table with a grill in the middle, and told to go to town.

Freaking delicious.

It wasn't my first time going to this type of place, but because I went there last night it's fresh in my mind. We had a reasonably big group (8 people) and it seemed like everyone had a good time.

If you're looking for a good Korean barbecue place in the northwest Chicago suburbs, visit BBQ Hut in Hoffman Estates. It's on the corner of Golf & Roselle, in the strip mall behind the Denny's. If you have a Korean friend who doesn't mind being asked what things are every 30 seconds, bring 'em along ... you don't need to be Korean to order there, but it's good to have someone with you who can tell you what all the side dishes are.

Remember: red means spicy!

I don't use the word "defenestration" often. There aren't that many occasions that warrant the use of the word. Nevertheless, it's a great word that should be used more often.

I have come to the conclusion that the Dell Latitude D830 is deserving of such a fate. I've had less trouble with ECS and Biostar motherboards ... I don't believe I've ever posted on this site about my troubles with those brands, but if I'm having more trouble with D830s than ECS K7SEMs, you know it's bad. I'm not sure if it's the laptop hardware itself, or the crappy drivers provided by Dell, but long-term stability was obviously not job #1 with these things. They'd serve their purpose just as well after being thrown out the 5th floor window.

Perhaps I should wait until the 8th floor move before I start chucking stuff, though.

I know I don't meet the minimum age requirement as outlined by the Constitution, but who cares? The world needs more blunt diplomacy ... prancing around the issue gets you nowhere. What's my party affiliation? Who cares! Write me in on November 4th!

In other news, I didn't know the Quizno's on Elmhurst & Golf closed. I went there to get a sandwich today and was greeted by a "For Lease" sign. Looks like the one on Wolf & Oakton was too close and they were competing for customers. Oh well.

I'm not talking about the main character of The Big Lebowski this time around. I'm talking about the free network scanner, available here: http://www.mikrotik.com/thedude.php

I've installed a Dude Server (basically, the Dude client running as a service) and have given it the task of monitoring the network. Yes, there are "pay" packages that are more thorough, but it's pretty cool. The Dude notifies me when any of the servers or printers go down, which is much better than waiting for someone in the office to tell me they're down.

Busy times at work. Lots of new projects -- 91 at the moment -- so I'm behind the moment I walk through the door. Not a situation I like to be in, but I need to roll with it until a certain transition happens.

So ... busy times, but good.

Time's flying by. September is over in less than 36 hours ... crazy.

I reloaded my home computer with Windows Vista Ultimate x64. This will allow me to take full advantage of the 4GB of RAM in that machine. Interestingly enough, I can't get the Corsair RAM I bought earlier on in the DP35DP fiasco to work in my computer ... nor can I get it to work in my work computer. I guess the system's just not happy with it. Need to do some research on that. Stabilitywise, though, the Gigabyte EP43-DS3L is leaps and bounds better than the Intel DP35DP it replaced. In case you can't tell, I'm quite happy about that.

Believe it or not, it has been a slow Monday so far. Morning was a little busy, but the afternoon is pretty much dead. I'm working on a database move at the moment, which involves copying just over 3GB of data between servers in different states. Luckily the "source" side of the connection has a 2 megabit upload speed, so the transfer times are at least tolerable.