DVD pick: The Twelve Chairs

OK, from the get-go, this isn't a flick I either despised or am wildly enthusiastic about... it's just a pleasant way to pass an hour-and-a-half or so. It's a Mel Brooks flick, but not in the joke-a-minute vein I've come to expect after Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and later films... in part, that's likely because it's scripted from an existing story based in the USSR not too many decades after the Revolution. In brief, an ex-noble finds out from his dying mother that she stashed some jewelry in one of their old dining-room chairs they left behind during the Revolution... right after she told the village priest as part of her deathbed confessions. Naturally, chaos ensues.

As long as you don't go into it looking for a standard Mel Brooks farce, it's a nice little film... it even comes with a nice moral about stuff not being the be-all and end-all of life. It's not a great film, but I would still recommend making some room for it in your Netflix queue.

Computer Geekdom Milestones

It was an odd day, with two major computer geek milestones hitting at once:

• Netscape, the web browser, is being shut down. It's not the first browser I ever used, but was almost certainly the first third-party browser I used... and I haven't gone near it in years, thanks to Firefox, but it's still noteworthy.

• Perl, the scripting language, got a new release today... the first new release in five years, which is practically an eternity in computer time. It's a testament to how solid the language was, in spite of all the hate it garners (and I've given my share, to be sure). On the other hand, the new version looks to finally support "switch statements", something the language has sorely lacked... and, as an added bonus, it's more than just a simple switch, allowing things like regular expression matching and... whoops, got a bit too far into geekdom that time... :)

Merry *crunch*mas

I couldn't be satisfied with just scratching my car, nooo..... I backed up into the wall of a parking garage on Saturday, and it didn't look like much of anything happened. I look this afternoon... there's a whoppin' great crack in the back bumper, and it's come open. I'm guessing it must have been there earlier, but vibrated loose in the intervening few days. At any rate, it's not something the dealership deals with... lucky for me, there's an auto body shop not six blocks from my house. Unlucky for me, it'll be about $700 to get back to "good as new", supposing nothing more's wrong than the "bumper cover" breaking. Oh well, that much longer 'til I get a Wii, I guess.

Merry Christmas

Hope you all enjoy yourselves... I'm off to gather with my family. Be sure to tell me about any cool stuff Santa brought ya... :)

'tis the season... for insanity?

Boy, I don't know if it's the approach of Christmas, the approach of the full moon, the approach of the solstice, or some combination of the above, but today was not a day to leave the house. I thought it was bad enough driving around at lunchtime, what with the extra traffic... but this afternoon a co-worker was laid off (and imagine the fun of that, given when it is), and then some yahoo driving the wrong way down a one-way street came entirely too close to me for my comfort on the way home. I'm not one for "drowning sorrows" or any such... but you can bet I put that homemade Kahlua I got at the office Christmas party to use tonight.

Movie of the day: Sweeney Todd

I lucked out... a friend of mine caught wind of a sneak preview of Sweeney Todd, but had to work, and was kind enough to pass along his seat to me. I mentioned earlier about seeing previews of the movie, and how I was impressed by the visual scheme and so on... and that still holds. However... it's not the movie I hoped it would be. They ramped up the gore (which I pretty much expected), but they also toned down the humor (which I didn't).

It's like Tim Burton and company decided that, rather than darkly humorous, they'd stick with dark, and toss in a little humor once in a great while. Two examples come to mind... in the stage play, when the beggar woman gets treated nicely, she ramps up to cobblestone-whore mode in a flash, which you see no sign of here. Also, in the "Have A Little Priest" number, they dropped the verse referencing the General with or without his Privates... and, rather than being just a conversation between the principals, the song is sung while they're peering out of the windows of the pie shop, ghoulishly surveying the exact targets of their verses... takes the song from funny to downright creepy.

Worst of the lot, in my mind, was the guy playing Sweeney (Johnny Depp, I believe? I'm terrible with actor's names). In every other production I've seen, Sweeney is obsessed, but still able to function in society with limited aid from Mrs. Lovett, and possessed of a certain wry humor. Here, Sweeney is shown to be practically catatonic when not in immediate pursuit of his goals (which, I'll admit, they do play up nicely in the "By the Sea" number), and deadpan throughout.

Mind you, there were some fun bits... getting the gent who plays Snape in the Harry Potter movies to take on the role of Judge Turpin was a great call, and I swear I should recognize where I've seen the gent they got to play the Beadle, but I can't... which is a shame, he's got oily obsequiousness and viciousness down pat.

Final verdict? If you're looking for a gorefest, this movie will satisfy, and feel free to catch it in the theater. Me, I may well pick it up on DVD... well after it comes out, of course, and mainly to pair with the DVD of the Angela Lansbury version I've already got. For most of you... eh, it's a fair rental, if you can stomach the gore.

Time to open a BIG can of worms...

...it's time to talk Religion! I was raised Lutheran, but gradually drifted off into the camp of Agnostics. I've even joked that I'm a Militant Agnostic ("I don't know the nature of God(s), and you don't either!"), but I certainly haven't been pushing my world-view onto anybody else, mainly because the reward-for-effort ratio just isn't there to justify.

However, Christian, Atheist, or Other, I encourage you to take a look at this: 10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (and Must) Agree On. It's well-reasoned, doesn't bash on either side, and, best of all, includes several "macro'd" images, at least a few of which are chuckle-worthy.

New Toy

CompUSA is going away locally, so of course I had to go scavenging over lunch today... and that little white box above the keyboards is the main result.  Yep, it's a low-end Mac Mini... which I'm using to write this post.  I'm waiting for the newest OS to come in the mail from Apple at this point, and I'm going to have to pick up a new KVM switch to properly integrate it into my octopus of computer madness, but these are minor things.

...and best of all, I found the Terminal.  Yes, it's Unix inside, and I can ssh and vi to my heart's content.  This may well end up becoming a "portable" system for me to work with from home and one of my worksites.  Oh, I didn't mention that I might be working in more than one place now?  I'm not yet, but one of the "sister" companies laid off their (overpaid) super-tech... I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager that I'll be setting up a workspace at their office before the end of the year... which is no skin off my back, it's about half as far from my house as my "real" office... :)

Cleaning out cobwebs

So yeah, I got my annual viewing of Scrooge out of the way... and, having decided that anything mentally "intensive" for the remainder of the day would be bad, I picked up a book I had started some time ago, and had been sitting in my living room ever since. I had been teased by a friend of mine about how long that book had been sitting there, and I knew it had been a while... but it's entirely another thing to open up a book and find a card with a May 2003 postmark on it, knowing that was recently received when it got put to that use.

Funny thing is, I still remembered the gist of the story so far...

Awake

Normally, I'm a pretty low-key person, with emotional ups and downs like anybody else... lately, it's been disturbingly neutral. What I mean is, nothing "bad" has struck me as particularly unexpected or noteworthy, and the only real "good" has been the occasional brief laugh at an unexpected joke or image, with no real lasting after-effects. It's a state of affairs that might not be exactly "healthy", but, with a steady emotional keel, the mechanics of life (especially work) tend to be much easier... well, up to the past day or two. You see, while nothing felt particularly "wrong", nothing felt particularly "right" either... even the computer and video games I play in my off time lacked their usual allure.

Today, I'm working from home... I took care of the standard "maintenance" items from work in the morning, got myself set up to do some "creative" work in the afternoon, and... again, it didn't feel "right". I couldn't motivate myself to do the simplest thing that involved any active thought on my part. I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I figured maybe a quick nap on the couch might help, so I went to lie down, and... that didn't feel "right" either. Now, anybody that's dealt with me over an extended period of time knows how highly I value sleep... so, for a nap to feel off, something has to be terribly wrong. It was time for me to do a little bit of mental housekeeping, to see what could be troubling me so.

What came to me was this... the common thread between my work and my play of late has been activity. Not physical activity, certainly, but mental activity... plotting, planning, scheduling, monitoring... chaining activities together for maximum efficiency (though, thankfully, not much in the way of this age's scourge of "multitasking"). It's been years since I have routinely "lived in the moment"... heck, even petting my cats tended to be something along the lines of "I'll do this for a few seconds, then I'll go...". I tested my hypothesis with a bit of the old Ludwig Van that came on the radio just then... I laid there on the couch and did nothing but listen for about a half-hour or so.

The difference was immediate and enormous. It was like a fog lifted from my brain (although it still feels a bit "tender"), and, I swear, even my eyesight improved, though I know not exactly how that works out. Looks like I'm on the right track... and it looks like more books and DVDs in my mix of off time activities will be more than just a "good idea" to be ignored like in past days. In fact, I'm off to go watch Scrooge now... time to turn the rest of today into one of those "mental health" days other companies than mine offer their employees directly.

More Toons

After inflicting Pork on my older brother, he returned the favor with an old short by Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame) called "The Miracle of Flight". Catch it on YouTube here.

Pork!

From the fine gent that came up with BadgerBadgerBadger and Kenya, I present, for your viewing and ear-worming pleasure, Pork.

One... More... Turn...

A fair part of my life is playing games, especially computer/console games. Every so often, one comes along that entices me into playing just one more turn, taking on just one more task, until I find myself staggering off to bed in the wee hours of the morning, because I really need to get some sleep. Civilization (in its various incarnations) has always been that way, and does it reliably enough to most people that I've used it as a "Trojan horse" to inflict my sickness on other people. Puzzle Pirates did it to me for a while, with its odd combination of puzzle gameplay tied to "useful" goals in-game... and now, that deadly combination has made it to the PS2 and Wii in the form of "PuzzleQuest". I figured, for $20, I could give it a shot... and played the damnable thing for nearly 12 hours straight. If you're looking for a console RPG that you can take at a leisurely pace, this will do it for you... but it looks like you'll have to shell out $30 if you want the Wii version.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving

What more needs said? :)

Computer Games and Pop Culture References

I don't know when or why it first happened, but computer role-playing games (especially the online variety) have been getting more and more "in" jokes added to them. Generally, I find them good for a chuckle or a quick groan (depending on quality), but I ran across one in my current "main" game, Tabula Rasa, that had me laughing outright.

Tabula Rasa is a "military" game, and, at a major base, that means PA announcements, among other things. The announcements here cover a broad range, from bureaucratic to wry to downright funny, but the best was from a Captain Koons, voiced in the style of Christopher Walken, saying he had somebody's watch, and that they could claim it at the infirmary... a reference to the Pulp Fiction "watch" segment. Sorry I can't give you the exact text, but I was laughing too hard to remember it exactly.

A Few Good Things

Nothing here worth its own post, but...

• Back last April, I made a post complaining about the billboard-truck I ran across... looks like I didn't get the full effect, because, at night, the truck would light its signs. How do I know this? Turns out the State Patrol finally got wind of that thing, and let the public know (through the local paper) that lighted signs on moving vehicles are illegal (with an exception for taxis), and there is some question about whether signs that change while a vehicle is in motion are legal, too. Hopefully, that monstrosity will be gone soon. I'd link to the story in the paper, but, well, the site requires registration, which I object to on general principles.
• Just saw Beowulf, and I really liked it. The standard warning about license being taken with the story applies, but... the big change I saw worked well, and made a great deal of sense when trying to combine the Grendel/Grendel's Mom part and the eventual dragonslaying bit late in Beowulf's life. I hear it's even better in IMAX 3D, but our local IMAX is too old for that tech... pity.
• Before Beowulf, of course, came trailers... and I just saw my first glimpse of the upcoming Sweeney Todd movie. I'm a fan of the musical... and I will be seeing this movie when it comes out. I'd say it was pretty, but that's not exactly right... the bits I saw were very... gray... but looked to be in keeping with the story (for those of you that don't know the story, Google it up... good, clean, wholesome fun! ;)
  

And now, for our next "lesser" holiday...

...it's Veteran's Day. Mind you, I don't mean to slight the holiday with that "lesser" tag, but what was intended to be a "thank you" to those who defended our country, sometimes against real threats, well... now, you're in a fortunate minority if you get the (observed) day off. Beyond that, it's become little more than a marketing opportunity for retailers... and even that's getting brushed aside in the rush to start the Christmas Shopping Season. Depressing, disturbing, disgusting... I'm not sure which one wins out here, but, on the whole, it ain't good.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November...

Yep, it's Guy Fawkes day... no, I'm not British. However, it is just the sort of "dangerous" holiday that should be kept in mind these days, I'm thinking... and what better way than to track down a copy of "V for Vendetta" for some entertainment, hey? Looks like Netflix doesn't have it available for online viewing yet (more's the pity), so I'll have a bit of a search ahead of me, short of heading to the store and buying a copy.

Sloth and Creativity

I have at least one friend, and likely a few more, that will be taking part in a "National Novel Writing Month" event next month, doing their damnedest to write a full-length novel (perhaps one even worth reading) in a month's time. Me... I'm looking forward to picking up Vol. 5 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, and probably a copy of Tabula Rasa to play.

I could carry on about how these people are more "creative" than I am, but, the fact is, they're likely not... I could go into how I'm more geared towards visual arts, and maybe there's a grain of truth to that, but that's not right either. Generally, I am averse to getting in on a group activity for the sake of it being a group activity... I'd much rather meander alone than join the lemming hordes of Bloomsday, for example... and that goes for personal creativity, too. In the meantime, I'm more than happy to consume the creations of others, especially as that is a much simpler activity.

My only concern... already, the occasional drive to create has lessened over time. I think of my father, who was a composer... yet barely played piano or sang (outside the church choir) while I was old enough to notice. I'll definitely have to get back on a creative jag... one of these days...

New Furniture

One of my out-of-town friends, last time he was by, commented on how poorly suited the hand-me-down rocking chair I had in my living room was to the task of backup seating... and I had to agree. I've got a nice, comfy couch, which I use when alone, but the main reason for the hardwood chair was for support when my back acts up, and then support trumps cushiness.

Today, that changed. I've picked up a nice little recliner, of odd style and even odder fabric (it was so popular, it was discontinued by the manufacturer... and ordering the same chair directly with a different fabric would have been 6 weeks and about $100 more... nothin' doin'... :)). I'll get some use out of it, surely... but the cats colonized it within minutes of the delivery guy leaving, so it was definitely a positive choice for the room.

Now, I just have to figure out how I really want things arranged in there...

Edamame

Otherwise known as "soy beans in the pod", a vegetable that has just attained a rare status... that of Food I Do Not Like. I picked some up frozen to try out as an experiment, and it's just wrong wrong wrong. Think peapods, yet both fibrous and stringy at the same time, and filled with soy beans instead of peas. I now know why so many stir fries call for peapods now, and will never, never stray again.

Twofer: bits of no great interest

10,000 miles - my car just ticked over that magic number on the odometer today... it's nice, in some ways, having a car with a "normal" mileage display again.

meat pies - I did a little experiment tonight... turns out you can make some fairly tasty pocket pies using mainly biscuit dough and some of the contents of one of those tub o' barbecue-sauced meats... in this case, I tried it with some shredded pork, and liked it enough that I'll likely do a full batch over the weekend, to get rid of the leftovers in the fridge... and if I don't have enough meat, I'll have to cook up some blueberries, I guess... :)

Released from Gizmo

Any of you that have dealt with me in-person have likely noticed that my use of vocabulary is a bit... non-standard, shall we say. One big reason for this is that I am quite wary of giving my word on anything non-trivial, because, when I do, I will do my utmost to fulfill that word, both in letter and spirit, and consequences be damned (in the words of Super Chicken, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, that sort of thing)... which just doesn't fit well with the laid-back and essentially lazy lifestyle I try to maintain.

A few months back, I mentioned the peculiar arrangement made with my boss in keeping one of his puppies on as Office Puppy. That came to a breaking point today, when his caregiver confronted me as to, basically, whose dog is it really, and what would happen should she get laid off, that sort of thing... and the truthful answer was that I was the owner, the dog would likely stay at the office, etc., etc. Of course, in the intervening timeframe, she had grown attached to the dog, as had her family, didn't like that I was dictating decisions on "her" dog, etc., etc... that conversation ended with her stating that if it was my dog, I needed to take care of it, and she left the office in a huff.

With reluctance, I started planning what this would mean for life at my house... free-for-alls between the 6lb puppy and whichever 12lb cat it tangled with, coaxing cats from hiding places, constant letting the dog in and out for potty breaks, crating the dog at night so the cats couldn't gang up on it while I was asleep, if I could even sleep through their attempts... not pleasant, but technically doable. Of course, the in-office atmosphere would be irreparably tainted too, and pretty well guaranteed not in my favor... but what could I do, short of going back on my word to shepherd the critter through puppyhood, thus making sure it got the "right start" in life?

There was only one out for me... and something that still tears at me as I write this, several hours later. When my boss finally made it into the office late this afternoon, I explained what had happened earlier, and formally asked to be released from my word. Luckily, he knows me well enough to know that I was serious, and promptly granted my request, whereupon I immediately went to Gizmo's caregiver, asked her if she wanted him, formally gave him to her, then left the office for the rest of the day. I know it was the right thing for the office, and I hope it was the right thing for Gizmo... I can only hope it won't haunt me for too terribly long.

Jolly

What is it about the word "jolly" that makes it so ripe for twisting to darker purposes? I only thought of this because I had two cartoon bits cross my consciousness in quick succession: the bit from Ren & Stimpy's "Space Madness" that goes "...the beautiful shiny button, the jolly candylike button...", and of course Invader Zim's "Most Horrible X-mas Ever" with the "Jolly Boots of Doom". Is it because we use the word so rarely outside of the Christmas season? Is it because of the way Burl Ives sings it in "Have A Holly Jolly Christmas"? While I'm at it, has anybody seen any other terribly wrong uses for this word? After the two previously mentioned, I'd have high hopes that any further jolly perversions would be good, clean, wholesome fun... :)

Buying for Business

The place I work for isn't quite big enough yet to have a "purchasing" department, or even individual for that matter... as such, I end up buying some of the things we need with my credit card and getting reimbursed afterwards. I can do this because they know they can trust me to be frugal, and I know that they have every incentive to keep me happy come credit card bill time (their lone server guy walking out on them would qualify as Bad).

In the process, I've come across something that, in this day and age, amazes me... companies that don't openly advertise their pricing for goods and services. They expect you to contact one of their sales representatives to get a quote on what you need... even if what they offer is substantially similar to their peers. Today's item for discussion: phone and internet service.

In consumer-land, phone companies and cable companies have product details, base pricing, and any special promotional offers readily available through their website. Turn to the business side of things... and pricing suddenly disappears behind the curtain, to be revealed only through contact with your personal intermediaries to the phone company pantheon.

What's my point? In any given market, there are a very limited number of players for this service... do they really think that any business that would take the time to research pricing online isn't going to put in for quotes with multiple vendors? What should be a simple matter, able to be researched over the course of an afternoon, instead drags out into a multi-day process whose sole purpose seems to be the lining of sales weasels' pockets.

If any phone company rep stumbles across this, you should know: in other product/service lines, I purposely avoid dealing with companies that use this tactic, precisely because the gain isn't worth the pain. If one of your competitors opens up their pricing to the outside world, I might do my current provider the courtesy of requesting a quote at the end of my contract... but that's it.

Damnable Human Frailty

I was planning on taking a long weekend in Seattle, what with work being slower than usual. Unfortunately, it looks like cold&flu season had its own plans. Grrr!

DVD Pick: The Prestige

Yeah, okay, I'll admit it... I should've gone and seen this film in the theater when it first came out. I heard it was good, but I didn't have much in the way of expectations about a story involving a couple of stage magicians dueling late in the gaslight era. If you haven't seen this yet, do so... I was paying pretty close attention throughout, and I still got blindsided by half the story at the very end, but it all made sense just the same. My only gripe... the one that started the whole mess comes out, for lack of a better term, on top. I won't say more than that... just like a magic trick, knowing the secret ahead of time spoils the fun.

Cell Phone Adventure: Hoist By My Own Petard

It's a sad fact of life: I'm getting older. One of the first effects that I've had cause to notice is that my memory is becoming slightly less reliable... not Alzheimer's scale or anything (thankfully!), but just enough to get me into trouble sometimes. Case in point, the latest twist in my Cell Phone Adventure.

Turns out, I forgot that, back when AT&T begat Cingular, that I paid for my old service for a number of months to Cingular before "upgrading" to a new phone, plan, etc. As such, I didn't dig deeply enough into my billing records to see when I actually signed up for their plan... and it turns out that I actually signed up in January 2006... which is less than 2 years... and so, in my final bill, I got a nasty $150 shocker added on (the dreaded Contract Termination Fee).

When I first saw the bill, I was livid, ready to drive into town and raise all manner of hell... then I found the proof of when the service started, verified it, and proceeded to berate myself six ways from Sunday. Then I went and did some calculations, just to see what I had inadvertently done to myself... and it turns out that, supposing I don't use my phone much more than I have recently, I will still barely come out ahead after all is said and done. I've said it before, and I'll say it again... I'd rather be lucky than smart any day.

Digital Distribution

I'm ever so looking forward to the day when you can get anything software-y purchased directly over the Internet and downloaded, if necessary, to the medium of your choice. Today's case in point: there's a game I'm looking to get, that was, in theory, released today. It's the third game in the sequel to a moderately-successful, four-part niche game (the whole series, which includes games, animation, and who knows what else, is referred to as ".hack"). Even though it's a PlayStation2 game, I would like little better than to download it, burn it to a DVD, and start playing right now, but that's not the way the world works... I checked websites for Best Buy and Circuit City, and both act as if none of the games ever existed... I check Amazon, and they grudgingly admit it should exist, and promise to have stock on Friday (and it qualifies for free shipping... waaahoooo... :/).

As a reward for enduring the dentist tomorrow morning, I'm going to hit Best Buy and have a look around... that's where I found the last two episodes of this game in its brief stint on the shelves locally... but I'm just not real hopeful. Here we are in an age where more and more is tracked more and more thoroughly, and I can't even begin to guess if or when I'll be able to find a stinkin' videogame.

Sundering the Bonds of Marriage

Heh, no, I didn't go and get married while nobody was looking... but I'm in the weird position of having multiple friends getting divorced simultaneously, which practically forces me to ponder the whole process and consequences involved. All you Spokane-living ladies looking for a sedentary, reclusive, late-30's gamer guy are still in luck... well, really, if that's what you're looking for, I might well not be looking for you, but I digress... :)

So, marriage isn't quite the "until death do us part" thing it was in decades past, and society as a whole seems to have come to grips with that... or, at least, I can't remember the last time somebody mentioned somebody else being divorced with the disdain that phrase might have brought up in the 50's. That said, shouldn't there be a "streamlined" option at least available these days? I mean, when both parties are agreed that their marriage needs to end, and neither is submitting that the other isn't a fit parent (in the cases where children are involved), wouldn't it be nice if there was a "standard" template, based on relative incomes or some such, that people could agree to for the "major" items, get that signed off on and enacted, then deal with the emotional minutae at their leisure... or, if either party failed to sign off on such, that it would be a big, red warning flag for the other side that things are about to get messy?

One friend is well into the process, was looking for what he considered a reasonable, amicable separation after his wife filed on him, and was accepting of what was going to happen to his marriage... until the wife's plan made its way to him, complete with terms for spousal support and child support that would grind him into the dust... despite their living mere blocks from each other and maintaining joint custody of the children. Another is just starting the process, and is also looking for what he considers as reasonable, amicable separation terms... but is getting pressured by his wife in I-don't-know-how-many ways, but including first restricting his blog from public (non-invited) view, then more recently preventing those people from commenting on what he puts up on the blog. The sad/scary thing is, I can't help but see parallels between the two cases... I can't say "this is the way it is", either intentionally or not, but, from what I've seen, it's like the wives in each case, seeing the end of their marriages in sight, are using the divorce process to punish their husbands and exert as much control as possible while they still can... and a big part of that control rests in the fact that the husbands care so deeply about the welfare of their children.

If there were a basic template available (and preferrably established by state law, so there's only one template to consider for any given divorce), there would still inevitably be problems, but not on the scale I've witnessed to date... get children, housing, and other major property separated and settled as quickly as possible, and allow either party to exclude individual items, or reject the template as a whole... but anything covered by the template should not be able to be revisited at a later date. If that were the case, then there would be a lot less of the petty power games and lawyerly weaseling to deal with in many cases... and both parties would know that there was fun on the horizon in the others.

Motivation

As you might guess from my profile picture, I have cats. I tend to be comparatively lax in the rules I expect them to adhere to, and, generally, we coexist nicely... and if there are temptations that I think are too great for them, I find ways to work around them. One such is scavenging from the kitchen trash.

Back when they were much younger, they took an interest in the trash, and, in the dark of night, would take to tipping the can over and sorting through the contents for tasty treats... a problem that I fixed by using a piece of twine to harness the trashcan to some drawers in my kitchen. Everything was golden for years thereafter... but last night I tossed something apparently irresistible to them, two slices of old pizza.

Yes, they got the lid off the trash, got the pizza out, and ate all the cheese and pepperoni off of the slices... but the impressive thing to me is that they managed to do this without waking me up, which is no mean feat. Sure, I sleep soundly, but I usually trigger awake off of "unusual" sounds, which I would think that whole sequence qualifies. Makes me wonder how much coordination between the two of them was involved, and how much pre-planning there might have been... I know, I know, it was probably a spur-of-the-moment decision on one of their parts, but there's always that nagging doubt... :)

Cell Phone Adventure: Surrender

For all that I'm stubborn, sometimes I can recognize when something just isn't worth the effort. I finally remembered to give Virgin a call this afternoon, dug through the phone tree and got a human, explained the situation, and listened while she tried her best to help. She went looking for my old account, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't find it. From some other cues I picked up from what she said, it looks like somebody 'overwrote' my old account info with the new account info, and somehow managed to lose my balance in the process. I was willing to let her keep trying, but I briefly heard a fire alarm go off on the other end of the phone before I was automatically disconnected.

Am I going to call back and go through all that again, over $20 or so? Not hardly... it just means that my first month of working with this provider will be *almost* as expensive as my prior months with my old provider, after all. This adventure is over.

Cell Phone Adventure: Almost there...

Well, my phone came alive on Friday night... everything works, but they seem to have neglected to bring across my cash balance from my previous number. Oh well, I'll wait until I'm at work tomorrow, and see if that can be rectified.

Cell Phone Adventure: Glutton for Punishment

It was late last night when my new phone finished its initial charge... so I went ahead and activated it. Surprisingly, it was straightforward, simple... and left me with a new phone number.

Now, for the number of people that know my phone number, I could easily have left it at that, passed out my new number, and contacted AT&T directly to get the old phone dropped... but I pushed things, and decided that I wanted to keep the old number (and honestly, I do have at least one half-assed reason... it happens, by sheer luck of the draw, to be one digit off of my sister's cell phone number... :)). I should have known better when the means to do so is listed deep in the service agreement, and requires a phone call to Virgin.

After working my way down the automated menu to find the necessary section, and letting it know that it's a non-Virgin number I wanted to work with, I get sent to wait for a "customer associate", I believe the term was... and get put on hold with, frankly, crappy music, and constant reminders that "I'm on the other line, it'll be just a sec". I'm not sure if it's an improvement over "Your call is important to us", but if anything drives me from Virgin Mobile, it will be the peppy, "hey, we're youth oriented" tone everything there seems to take.

No gory details beyond that point... except that I'd forgotten, many years ago, that AT&T asked for my SSN as part of the signup process (credit check, I'm sure), so that was a bit of a surprise. Other than that, lots of reading info off of my AT&T bill, multiple times on hold, and... my phone should be back on the network in 3-5 days. Of course, AT&T dropped my old phone like a hot rock once the news hit them that I was leaving... but they did warn me about that. Here's hoping nobody *really* needs to get hold of me remotely for a few days.

Cell Phone Adventure Time!

So yeah, I started out my cell-phone-using life something over 4 years ago... I know this because I've had two 2-year contracts, first through AT&T, then through Cingular (which split off from AT&T, and is now returning). The first trip with AT&T started a little bit rough (I basically had to threaten to reject the phone when it arrived to get it shipped... strange, but true), but was smooth sailing from there on out. When AT&T begat Cingular, I bought a new phone and a new contract... and had nothing but trouble getting billed in a timely manner... to the point where I actually received one bill after the due date.

Now that Cingular's being re-absorbed by AT&T, I had some hope that billing might get straightened out. I received my first AT&T bill on Monday, with a due date of Thursday.

Now, it should be well known to just about everybody here that, to the greatest extent possible, I Don't Do Phones... my cell phone exists almost entirely to catch "help me" calls from work, with family coordination and pizza being close runners up. I've got several thousand "rollover minutes" on my current phone that I can't ever foresee using. So... I'm going to experiment with a prepaid phone from Virgin Mobile. It's charging as I, er, speak... let's see how much fun we get to have on this one!

Milestones

During a conversation out at work today (yes, I was at work on a Saturday, but not in a I'm-stuck-here-for-no-good-reason way, more of a It'll-be-less-painful-to-do-this-with-nobody-else-on-the-computers way), I mentioned (and thereby came to the realization of) that I had lived in my house for more than 9 years (is this sentence confusing enough yet? :)).

Later, I realized that this means that I've been living in this house for longer than my entire time in the Navy (8 years and a few months). All I can say is... it sure doesn't feel like it's been that long. Don't know whether that says more about me as I age or the entire Navy experience, but there you go.

Movie o' the day: Paprika

If you don't care for anime with subtitles or anything... odd... then this isn't the movie for you. On the other hand, if the strange actively attracts you, definitely go see this movie now.

I won't go into great detail (I don't think I could if I tried), but the basic premise begins with a device to let people enter other people's dreams (purely for psychological therapeutic purposes, of course). A few prototypes go missing, a little abuse occurs... and it's not long before things get well and truly out of hand, in a mass-collapse-of-internal-boundaries sort of fashion. Good, clean, wholesome fun!

Consequenses

Well, my tech support fun continues... but a bit of an unexpected twist came about today. You see, the gent I had been communicating with seemed to have it fixated in his head that some other program installed on my server must be the source of the problems with their software... and was getting desperate enough to start tossing Microsoft bulletins at me that had no bearing on the problem at hand, and suggesting that the other, standard Microsoft systems I had in place would prevent them from providing more help. Since I had just recently been given the email address of their sales weasel for other reasons, I included him in a mildly heated reply, expecting maybe to get somebody to look at his work, and... well... correct him.

Boy, did I misjudge. I got a call from the sales weasel in question, letting me know that the gent in question had acted inappropriately and was no longer on my problem, but it had been given to a 'senior' technician, and oh, he hasn't called you yet? Oh, and maybe you would like to talk to this consultant buddy of mine, etc., etc. While I'm impressed by the seriousness with which they're now taking this problem, I have to wonder about their prior tech. I mean, yes, his general knowledge level was below mine, and maybe he wasn't ready for the front lines of tech support... but, from the tone of people involved, it sounds like the guy might have gotten canned outright. If that's the case... well, my feelings are mixed. On the one hand, incompetence shouldn't be tolerated/rewarded... but on the other, it's never a good feeling to have a direct hand in getting someone fired who's doing their best with what they have.

Well, at any rate, here's hoping that the guy's doing okay... and is taking a lesson from this other than "that guy in Spokane was such a dick!"

Frontline Tech Support

Lessee, it's been nearly two weeks since I posted last... but how do I trump wry insight and pictures of Gizmo the Office Wonder Puppy? Answer: I don't even try... so it's time for a mild rant instead!

Out at work we (meaning mainly me) are trying to upgrade some server software before we expand the user base by 4 times its current size. I won't say what software, because it wouldn't mean much to anybody that reads this, but it's one of those "industry standard" sort of things. Out of an abundance of caution, I decide to do a "test" install on an old server over the past weekend. Things go smoothly on the install, reboot everything (like stuff in Windows-land always seems to require), go to administer the server and... get nasty, programmer-level error messages.

In particular, the chain starts off something like "bad image format" and ends up with "memory access" errors... the sort of thing that should NEVER happen in a professionally-coded product (memory access errors mean the program's trying to interfere with memory locations that don't belong to it... and likely belong to somebody else). Anyways, I try a few tricks at my command to make sure that it's not an issue with my configuration or permissions, then give it up and email it in to their support department.

Monday morning rolls around, and... no response. I go check the mail logs (when you run your own mail server, you can see what, in a broad sense, everybody's tried to do with it), and see that their support department tried to email me, but failed... because their mail systems aren't set up properly. I'm already getting a warm fuzzy out of this.

So, I let them know their problem... and they get back to me... by Hotmail. I'm trying to think of an appropriate analog in the real world... maybe if you went and bought a high-end car with a service contract, had a problem, and the mechanic came to you by public transit, because his Escort was giving him problems. Anyways, they try to put off on permissions maybe being the issue, and conveniently describe those memory access errors in terms that make them seem like they might be caused by some other program installed on the server (which doesn't work on so many levels that I won't even try for an analogy).

So, I've politely (much more so than here) called their bluff, given them as much information as I can on the system in question... and we'll see where it goes from here.

Organized Sports

Just a quickie for contemplation... organized sports (in their current form) originated back in the Industrial Age, when workers' weekly work schedules were reduced to a mere five and a half 12-hour days (or longer) per week, and the upper classes wanted something to distract the proles from liquor, lewdness, corruption and abuse on their new full day off. As a side effect, the popularity of sports increased newspaper readership, as savvy publishers added sports sections and box scores to their papers.

Fast forward to current day... we apparently have players on drugs, refs on the take, and, in many cases, cultures of abuse and/or lewdness that far outstrip anything the originators feared. Change for the better... well, it doesn't always stay that way.

Puppy Pix!

As threatened, here's pictures of the yet-to-be-named, seven week old Office Puppy:

Puppy Godfather

I often wonder at the odd turns life takes. Today, I went to work expecting nothing out of the ordinary... by afternoon, I was tentatively chosen to be a puppy's godfather.

Obviously, explanation is in order. The company president (who runs a hobby cattle ranch on the side) has dogs... Shih Tzus, of all things. His wife's been breeding their pair for a number of years, and they're hard to beat in terms of both physical cuteness and personality. They decided that this litter would be the last... but past litters have served them well, as they sold puppies or, in some cases, used them as rewards or incentives on business deals (always making sure they went to decent homes in the process, of course).

Somehow, it got into somebody's head that I needed one of these puppies. Don't get me wrong, they're cute as hell, and a pleasure to be around, but, well... as you can tell from my profile image, cats are more my speed. Especially at puppy age, dogs need attention, playtime, and socialization to mature properly, none of which I feel I could adequately provide, given the hours I spend in front of a computer. On the other hand, there's a gal in the office whose little dog died about a year back, who's fallen in love with the critters... but the current owners believe that she couldn't afford to raise one of their puppies properly.

So, here comes the strange idea (and I'm rarely put off by an idea's strangeness alone) - I'm to act as the puppy's godfather, which basically means that I'll front the bill for getting shots/neutered/etc. (and likely get reimbursed on the sly by the boss), and I'll be the "fallback" if the gal's life circumstances dictate that she can't keep the puppy for whatever reason. In return, the puppy becomes the Office Puppy, getting attention lavished on it by everyone there during the day, including spoiling/corruption by yours truly, especially at lunchtime.

It's not final... the gal in question is doing some family reunion thing until Monday, but odds are that I'll be a Puppy Godfather early next week. If so, I'll be sure to post a pic or two, on general principles... :)

War in Iraq - time we were gone

I know, I know, that title is going to raise the hackles on some of my friends... but honestly, that's pretty much how I feel. It's not that I don't think the situation is winnable... it's just that, as a society, we're not willing to do what's necessary to win there.

Of course, the first problem is that we should never have gone in the first place... and not because regime change is bad. On the contrary, regime change can be a very good thing for all involved (except the existing regime, of course). Simply put, you don't open a second front on a war until and unless it's forced upon you. We took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, and now we're paying the price for that there.

Many will say that, now that we've butted into Iraq, we need to stay there until we set things right. Lovely idea, if the goal is attainable. On the military front, you need a mix of at least three things - numbers, technology, and intelligence. We have a decent mix of numbers and technology, but our intelligence is crap. We make forays into insurgent-controlled areas, but, from what I've seen, pretty much only when we're clued in to a large concentration of insurgents... otherwise, we patrol our supply routes, try to maintain some semblance of order in areas we've claimed, and leave it at that. We could do more... if we had information from the local populace. Heck, more often than not, we can't even tell if an individual's a local, something the locals could tell us without hesitation.

So, how do you get the locals to give you the information you need to win? Now we're in the realm of politics. This bit, Machiavelli had pegged... in order to control a populace, paraphrasing a bit, best good is if they love you, but above all make sure that they fear you. We had our chance at getting the people of Iraq to love us... and pissed it away. That leaves the fear option... and that's where we will fail. Even the government that we helped establish doesn't fear us in the least... faced with a list of prerequisites for our continued presence and a two-month timeframe to complete them, their legislature is taking a month's vacation. Within the past day or two, their president has stated that (Allah willing) they could make do without American troops.

At this point, extreme measures would be required to get sufficient fear/respect to control things there... personally, I think the most likely to work would be the Mongol method (back before the Black Death dismantled that empire): conquer an area, let the locals know that they can do whatever the hell they want, so long as they don't interfere with the conquerors... and any that do get examples made of them... not just the troublemakers (if you could identify them), but the whole area. There were at least a couple of cities that were wiped off the map by the Mongols, but the remainder stayed in line until the empire's fall.

Now, look to yourself and your neighbors... tell me that any of you could stand behind, let's say, using a tactical nuke on Sadr City, even if that stopped all the sectarian violence. I know even I would have a hard time justifying it. But without that scale of reprisal, local leaders will continue to hold sway, mostly through fear... we won't get the intel we need to take down outside insurgent forces, never mind local militias... we'll keep the brakes on the violence, but the deaths will still come, just taking 5 years instead of 6 months, all the while with us being blamed for not doing enough to keep people for killing each other. Sadly, the best we can do at this point is to
get out of the way, let the civil war take place, possibly back a side if we are asked to do so, and let the new Iraq form as naturally as possible... and if we don't like what shape that takes, knock the anthill down and try again.

Convenience vs. Security

There are a couple of well-known issues with computer security these days... the first (which has been mathematically proven) is that no system can be proven to be secure. The second is that security and convenience are two extremes of design, and an individual balance has to be struck between them on each project you create. It appears that I've become victim of one case of a little too convenient... one of my credit cards has been compromised.

Luckily, it looks like it's just the one card... best guess at this point is that one of the vendors I used that card with had a security oopsie on their stored credit card database, then the perps used the information gleaned from that to set up online login credentials with my provider, Washington Mutual, whereafter they changed the addresses and phone numbers to values useful to themselves. The only reason I was aware that anything happened was when I tried to make a purchase online today, and the card bounced.

So, now I'm getting a new card... and am going to likely have a week's worth of fun monitoring/verifying that things stay as they should, because WaMu's coders couldn't conceive that anybody would not want to have online access to their accounts. The hope is that, once I've got my new numbers in hand, I'll be as semi-secure as I ever was... but worst case, I may have to shut down all business with WaMu. The bad address and phone number have already made their way into two of my credit reports, so I get to have that fun, too... here's hoping things don't get too nuts from this.

A good time to be a courtier, I guess...

I could go overboard and make comparisons to conditions under 18th-century monarchies, but I'll try to restrain myself. "Scooter" Libby does a crime (although the appeals process is still ongoing...), gets sentenced to start serving some jail time, and, lo and behold, El Presidente steps forth and says "Don't worry Scooter, I won't let you serve any jail time!" He does so noting that the sentence he received is too harsh, in his opinion.

You know, I can think of a time when a president might have used this as a reason to spur a review of federal sentencing guidelines, and maybe quietly commuted the offender's sentence after some jail time had been served, but that's obviously not recent history. Of course, Mr. Bush tries to defend his action, because, hey, Scooter still has a fine he has to pay, and probation to serve, and he'll be marked as a felon from this point on (supposing he doesn't get pardoned first), but honestly, in that Washington these days, are any of those problems? Tell me that Scooter won't receive financial aid to cover his legal bills and fines from political contributors. Tell me that he won't be given an accommodating parole officer so he can schedule his meetings just like any of his other meetings he does as part of his job. Best of all, tell me that anybody he's likely to go to work for in the private sector will really consider his felon status a detriment to the company. I could really use a good laugh right about now.

All in all, it's not a hard concept... equal protection under the law, never mind whether you're connected or not. What's worst in this, though, is if you catch the video of Mr. Bush announcing this commutation... in comparison to any other announcement he's given in recent years (and he's given a few), he's batting his eyes like mad while giving it, which is usually a pretty good sign in most people that they're knowingly bullshitting you. I'd still be irked that he did this if it was just "hey, I really am as clueless as I usually act", but this just takes the cake.

Gods, but I do love it so when somebody (especially somebody in a position of trust) gives me an all-new low estimation of mankind.

Office of the Vice President fun

So, I've been watching this unfold for the past couple of days... an Executive Order exists that states that all entities within the Executive Branch of government must submit to inspections covering what classified material they're keeping, and how they're safeguarding that information. Generally speaking, sounds like a good idea, right?

Well, Mr. Cheney has decided that, since the Vice President also acts as President of the Senate, his office isn't part of the Executive Branch. Now, as my recollection of governmental life goes, belonging to more than one group doesn't mean that you get to ignore the rules of either... rather, you have to do your best to meet the strictures of both, incompatible and sometimes contradictory though they may be. Since the entities involved are all Executive Branch-controlled, however, I couldn't see what anybody could or would do about it.

Until now... this is a thing of beauty, or as close as ever happens in a bureaucratic government like ours. Since the argument being pressed is that the office of the Vice President isn't part of the Executive Branch, it has no business being funded as part of the Executive Branch... and moves are underway to cut that funding. Story's here, for any as care to look... I can only hope some change actually comes from this, one way or the other.

Robot Chicken: Star Wars

If you've never been exposed to either of the items listed in the title, well... you should really hunt them down. If you have, however, here's a combo shot for ya...

And now, the flip side...

Cooler heads, legal advice, whatever... Dave's posted a mea culpa. Worthy of mention in and of itself, but... now I get an education in one downside of third-party hosting of blogs & forums. In the span of roughly 7 hours from my last post, somebody or somebodies made 3 comments on it... which have all since been deleted. I know, if I were the one building/hosting this blog, that I would at least want to know who left comments, even if they thought better of it afterwards... but that's not the design choice this company made. It's a maddening little itch that I can do nothing to scratch.

Oh well, water under the bridge, not my problem originally anyways, etc., etc... and see what breaking your lurking cover gets you? Nothing but trouble... :)

Whoops... just found a means to find out the who, on the comments, without too much hassle. Ahh... much better, that itch getting scratched... :)

Lurking is your Friend

Funny thing about the Internet... it gives people the capacity, but not necessarily the ability, to act as a better, idealized version of themselves in "real life". Similarly, companies can put forth, with minimal effort, a professional persona that highlights their strengths while minimizing their weaknesses... that is, up to the point where they decide to run their own blogs and/or forums.

Case in point, that old navy buddy of mine I mentioned last post (his name's Dave, by the way)... he loves a decades-old tabletop strategy game called Star Fleet Battles, or SFB for short. Apparently, he had a question about handling all the assorted paper bits such a game entails in the modern-day electronic world, and posted it on the company's forums. One thing leads to another, and now he's of the mindset to never deal with the game or the company ever again... because of the behavior of one of the designers of the game on the thread he started.

Now, in all honesty, I didn't see the drama unfold. I liked SFB well enough back in the 80s and 90s, but it's a time-consuming game in a fast-paced world. As such, I don't monitor their message boards or any such. But, on the one hand, I have Dave, who has his weaknesses, but vindictiveness and bile generally aren't among them... and on the other hand, there's the designer in question, who deleted posts and threads, rather than simply locking them out like many companies would (Blizzard Entertainment, of World of Warcraft fame, comes to mind), and looks to have pursued the fight to the comments area of Dave's blog (I can't swear to that, but the posts certainly have that flavor to them). Based on that, I'm quite likely to take Dave's point of view of the events as they occurred, because he's not acting like a nutcase with things to hide.

Lessons to be learned from this: If your company has the need to deal with a forum to please its consumer base, get some professionals to manage it for you. Better on top of that would be to have a third party run the actual forum for you, so you are neither tempted to do irrational things in a fit of pique nor capable of being credibly blamed of doing just so when you haven't.

As for me, I'll do like I always do... if I'm on any message boards, I'll ask the other users for answers if I need them, otherwise I'll lurk in the shadows and watch the flamefests unfold from there.

Feast or Famine

Right now, an old Navy buddy of mine is beating himself up for verbally exploding on his family after a confluence of aggravations. I understand, in a way... he's a passionate sort to begin with, and the sharpest needles are those held by those that know you best. It gives me pause, though, because that's a big part of what's kept me from pursuing intimacy with most people... while the good times and laughs are worthwhile, the worries and annoyances and conflicts often outweigh the positives. I've become content with a more 'neutral' lifestyle, and find dealing with most people actually drains me these days... luckily, I do still have a few connections that get me out of the house every so often, otherwise I'd be downright hermitile, instead of merely reclusive.

Feast or famine, an excess of passion or a dearth... this definitely has the look of one of those "golden mean" things... guess I'll just have to take a look, see if I can find a path even further from the tepid comfort of numbness I embraced, then escaped, so long ago.

Movie o' the day: Shrek the Third

Right, first the ultra-quick overview: it's mildly entertaining, but nowhere near the level of funny of the first two. Matinee, Garland, or Netflix fare.

That said... it's not a bad film, it's just not great. In broad strokes, the story: Prince Charming has sunk to the level of doing dinner theater, and lays all the blame at Shrek's feet. The frog king croaks, and, to keep from having to take over the job of king himself, Shrek sets out with sidekicks to get the one other person in line for the job (funny how it's Shrek calling the shots, not Fiona... you know, the heir and all). Literally while the boat is pulling away from the docks, Fiona lets drop that she's pregnant, leaving Shrek to wrestle with his perceived inadequacies. While Shrek's away, Prince Charming stages a coup with the help of all the other villains... he captures Fiona and the other ladies, and thereby is able to capture Shrek when he returns. Shrek is set up for execution in a grand play put on by the Prince based on his old dinner-theater schtick, but the ladies and sidekicks have escaped, meaning to put an end to the madness... but are tripped up by the villains. Enter the new king to put forth a "We're our own worst enemies/can't we all just get along?" soliloquy, everybody gives up except the prince, who's taken out by his own props.

So, a formulaic script, and damn few "good" gags (although I have to admit, Snow White summoning the woodland creatures with her singing, then unleashing them on the enemy was decent). Still, it did get a few chuckles out of me, which is all you can hope for out of most summer movies.

It's Memorial Day...

...so, once you've had your fun for the day, and taken some time to remember your war dead from your "favorite" war(s) from Gulf War II back to World War II, I hope you'll join me in thinking a little further back. Personally, I recommend contemplating those who served and died in World War I... trench warfare, mustard gas, and massed frontal attacks on machine gun nests, all in a bid to deal with a War to End All Wars. If only for that goal, unattainable as it may be, they deserve to be remembered.

Remember, it's easy to remember the participants in wars where the survivors live on... but that doesn't make the sacrifices of past wars worthy of forgetting.

Unspeakable Evil, in a Cute Package

OK, so you all know I like sick and twisted things... and if cute gets thrown into the mix, I'm good with it (as evidenced by my last post). Most of you probably also know I have an (un)healthy interest in Lovecraftian bits. How, then, am I supposed to resist My Little Cthulhu? Stay strong, stay strong...

Animation Recommendation: Happy Tree Friends

We now take you back to your regular blog, which is already in progress...

How to present this... well, it's definitely not for the kiddies, I'll say that for starters. It's also not for the squeamish or easily offended... hell, I'm recommending it, and I'm somewhat embarrased by liking it. On the other hand, if you like your "cute" animation with a healthy helping of the old ultraviolence, this is the show for you.

The basic idea in each episode is, generally, an ultra-cute forest animal-based cartoon show, that starts out normally enough, but then goes horribly wrong somewhere along the way, leading to the demise of most, if not all, of the characters involved. Oh, and this is basically a non-verbal sort of thing (the most intelligible bit I've heard to date is an "Oh yeah" out of Disco Bear), so it relies heavily on sight gags, even when it's not going all Itchy-and-Scratchy on the cast.

Intrigued? Well, of course you can snag a copy through Netflix, but, if you're just looking to see what's up right now, try this. I've seen "And the Kitchen Sink", and it's pretty okay... I'd just recommend staying away from episodes with Flippy to start with... he's the appropriately-named Green Beret bear that is too easy of a crutch to get things going with in the short, online episodes at the website. If you do pick up season 1 volume 1 though, he definitely works in "Party Animal".

Doing better...

Thanks for the posts & concern, all... as you can see, last night I was not in a "good place". I think I've regained my "center" now, and, while I'm still a damn far sight from being OK, neither am I down and out. It helps not to dwell on it, so I likely won't be doing much more on the topic of my Dad or his death in the near future... which, frankly, is likely a bit of a relief for us all... :)

Warning: unpleasant topic follows

It's time to use words that I always "knew" I'd have to use one day, but still feels strange to actually be using... namely, this: my Dad just died today.

Time for flowery prose later... for now, the awful truth, the horrible vision of watching him gasp an gurgle for air in his nursing home bed, eyes open but not seeing... hands turned blue from lack of oxygen... the hope, but not the certainty, that all that was there was basic animal survival reflex, not the heart and mind of the man who helped me become what I am today.

Time for bittersweet memories of days past later... for now, the alternation of pain and numbness that lures you into embracing the numbness... but knowing that that path is closed to me, as I lived there long ago, and struggled to escape.

Time for worrying about how melodramatic this all sounds later... for now, the occupation of time until I can sleep, and then the new day after... the first day after my Dad died.

...of course, it's another kind of institution, too...

Yep, the Internet's also an insane asylum of sorts... how else can you explain sites like this? Mind you, I'm not saying it's bad... it just ain't normal... :)

It's official... the Internet's an Institution

It doesn't happen often, but change sometimes catches me by surprise... and when it does, it's usually both entertaining and disturbing. By "change", I'm not talking the various cyclic bits that most people seem to obsess over (language, fashion, music, that sort of thing), but indications that something "new" has taken hold so thoroughly that it likely won't be uprooted in my lifetime. What's triggered this line of thought today? I just got back from a trip to Seattle, which I took by road... where I saw a change to, of all things, the rest areas along the way.

Just about every rest area I saw is now equipped with a WiFi hotspot. Details are here, but it basically boils down to some free road/travel info, plus pay access to the rest of the 'net. The Internet has now gone from a playland for geeks (back when I started playing in 1993) to a resource so important to the minute-to-minute lives of travelers that access points are spaced not more than an hour apart over well-traveled paths... important enough for state government to set up semi-public access (and yes, I'm sure that, in theory, they might get some money back off the deal, but even so...). Business travelers didn't really need it... most that are that crunched for time would fly instead of drive, and/or have cellular-based 'net access of one flavor or another... so that means that WiFi is now perceived as being just that essential to John Q. Public that they can't/won't do without for the length of a freeway drive between cities.

At least they struck a decent balance between public and private on this one... when I saw the first sign, I feared and assumed that it'd be a wide-open access point, ready for a spammy drive-by, or other I'd-rather-this-not-be-traced-back-to-me activity (and considering the number of child porn stories I've seen lately, that's just disturbing)... not that paying to play necessarily stops that. I wonder what sort of Terms of Use they have posted, and whether that includes State Patrol oversight in real-time... I'd tell you, but I couldn't get it to work with my PSP.

Animation Recommendation: Bugs Bunny on Broadway

OK, so this isn't exactly the "pick it up on DVD" recommendation that I would normally give... but then, if by some bizarre means you've never been exposed to the Looney Tunes characters at all, there's several DVD sets out there demanding your attention. No, this is specifically for the cartoons-and-symphony mix that is "Bugs Bunny on Broadway", which has been several places already before making it to Spokane just this weekend... and if it's already been done in your area, and you didn't get to see it, here's hoping it'll make an encore appearance one of these days.

At any rate, I should tell you what it is I'm pushing on you... it's multiple "relatively safe" Warner Brothers cartoons (that is, they're showable in their entirety to the general public without needing to edit out content considered unsavory by today's standards), with the music track on most of them being performed in sync by your local symphony orchestra. There were some decisions made in the Spokane show that I have to question (quick-mixed solo and full symphony bits in The Rabbit of Seville pop to mind, due to relative volume issues), but on the whole it was great fun. Seeing these cartoons on the Big Screen, the way they were meant to be seen, plus the freshness of the live music, plus the pure laughter of children in the audience who were obviously being exposed to this for the first time... this is something I can heartily recommend to you all.

Another bit of my respect for humanity bites the dust

I suppose it was only a matter of time... but that doesn't make running across this abomination any better. I'm no great fan of marketing schemes, but this should really be illegal. What, might you ask, annoys me so?

I was driving down a busy arterial, when I come across something that looks like a delivery truck... except it's painted lime-green, and the sides and back of what would be the cargo area have been replaced with huge windows wherein billboard-style ads are displayed. Better still, the ads are actually on automated scrolling machines, that every 10 seconds or so scroll to another ad. It's a moving, changing billboard, out in the middle of traffic (and going about 5mph under speed limit, to make sure that as many people as possible pass it and see it). That's not the least bit hazardous or distracting, is it?

Think I'm kidding? Here's their website... and here's hoping this idea dies its well-deserved death in Spokane, before polluting anywhere else.

2fer: Microsoft and Lumpia

OK, so I don't have enough of anything today to justify a whole post on its own... so here's two quickies:

• In a grand step backwards, Microsoft has apparently decided that, when confronted with a corrupted file, Office should gracefully... crash.
• Philipino cuisine is a tasty treat... especially Lumpia, the best version of the egg/spring roll concept I've found to date. If you haven't tried any, you should do your best to find some. For those of you in Spokane, there's a place called "Nipa Hut" near the corner of Nevada and Francis that's quite authentic (including dishes with ingredients many hereabouts wouldn't consider food, that sort of authentic). For that reason, I say... get it while you can... :)
  

Imus Idiocy, and Surrounding Stupidity

Wouldn't you just know it... right after I say "ranting, not so much", along comes something to put me on edge... the remarks of Don Imus about the Rutgers female basketball squad, and the ensuing firestorm therefrom.

Now, I'm not going to let this digress into a general rant on the state of news media today... frankly, the fine folks at JibJab have that covered. Also, I'm no fan of Mr. Imus or his breed... any media geared towards stirring up hate and discontent in a loyal "base" is downright distasteful to me. That said, there is a disturbing element in this latest reaction to the inherent bigotry of a bygone age, that being the calls for the FCC to regulate such speech out of existence.

Yes, what Mr. Imus said was distasteful, even hurtful, intentionally or not. If the targets of this language feel sufficiently aggrieved by what transpired, there are many avenues open to them, from demanding an apology (which has been given... how honestly, I couldn't begin to guess), to pressuring his employer to fire him (in progress), to boycotting his sponsors if he isn't fired, to filing suit for slander/libel, as appropriate... but, in the final analysis, Mr. Imus called a group of people a name, and there is no amount of name-calling that could convince me that ceding even a fraction of our First Amendment rights is a proper response... and I have grave concerns about any group that thinks otherwise.

Name Change

It's quickly become apparent to me that rarely, if ever, will I be "ranting" here (in my case, all that sort of tendency generally fades in about a day's time, and I always stop and ponder before I put pen to... er, right, fingers to keys). As such, the name for this blog shall hereafter be "delRhode's disTractions", for those of you who feel the need to update your bookmarks, etc.

Animation Recommendation: Danger Mouse

This will likely be a recurring item hereabouts... I do like my animation. Of course, I like it for many and varied reasons, all of which I myself may not know. Take, for example, Danger Mouse. Hand-drawn animation done for the BBC in the early '80s... so we're not talking the height of technique at the time (but still better than some of what passed for cartoons then)... but it redeems itself quite nicely with its mix of dry humor (as only the British can do) and outright silliness. Be warned (or enticed, as the case may be), as a product of the '80s, P.C. just isn't on the radar (note the accent of Stiletto, the Baron's hench-crow).

How much do I like this series? I picked up the first two seasons as soon as I saw them on DVD at Christmas, and, after snagging the next disc from Netflix, I will be picking up seasons 3 and 4 as well... and as a rule, I don't buy discs I can get through Netflix.

Humility

For all that I'm a fairly easy-going guy, at heart I'm really an arrogant bastard. I'm smarter than average, and I tend to plan ahead better than most I've met, which translates into thinking I'm better than others, especially in my chosen field. Luckily, every so often I manage to do something bone-headed enough to ground myself in reality again... like this past weekend, for example.

I won't bore you all with the gory details... but suffice it to say that the server upgrades I intended to take most of Saturday afternoon ended up taking all that night, including deleting an archive of important files right after losing the originals and doing a from-scratch install on one machine... which got me to the point that I only had to deal with unhappy coworkers today instead of unhappy customers. Oh, and I get to look forward to more of the same tomorrow, at least.

You know what I need... one of those guys the Caesars of old had, to constantly whisper in my ear "remember, thou art mortal"... any takers?

Movie o' the day: 300

Finally went and saw 300 today with my weekly gaming group... and I'd say it's worthwhile. Sure, it's not exactly historically accurate (although it does come closer than I would expect out of Hollywood), and it doesn't have a real deep plot... but minute-for-minute, it's got more quotable (or mockable, if you prefer) lines and more violence (sometimes reaching Monty Python-esque proportions) than any film I've seen recently. Oscar material it ain't, but for a little primal-level distraction, it's hard to beat.

Behold, THE Microsoft Pen

For anybody that doesn't know me personally, I'm the Computer Guy for a smallish company... which got me an invite to the recent Vista Launch event. Since that gave me an opportunity to learn how Vista would make my life better/easier/shinier for years to come (and leave work for half a day), I went. One of the perks was a swag bag full of mostly useless things, but included was THE Microsoft Pen.

I refer to this pen as THE Microsoft Pen because, frankly, it is the perfect Microsoft pen, for reasons I'll detail below... but first, let me describe the basic construction of this pen. The click-button at the top of the pen does not bring out the pen point, but rather turns on a red LED that makes the clear plastic lower bit glow like a little lightsaber-dagger (light-dagger?). To get the pen point, you have to twist the point end of the pen. In order to support the glowy bits, ink storage is reduced to about half the total length of the pen... and, since I dared to unscrew the top cap to see what sort of battery it used, the glow-button is intermittent, needing careful positioning to perform its intended task.

So, why is this pen THE Microsoft Pen? The pretty bits are readily accessible, the useful bits are hidden, some of the useful bits have been pared down to make way for the pretty bits, and the pretty bits misbehave if you push it too far.

And so it begins...

Well, I never thought the day would come... but yes, the blogging has begun. I wouldn't expect to see much here, especially not routine updates, but you're certainly welcome to sniff about.