eilrahc

politics, meh

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:09:36 GMT

Now, I'm not any kind of political person, but I'm fairly excited about the presidential elections going on this year. The past eight years of government leadership have just been Really Bad on a number of levels and I was afraid that choosing the next president was going to yet again boil down to deciding on the lesser of two evils.

Then I noticed in the middle of last year that one of the guys running actually shows evidence of having some moral fiber about him as well as a dose or two of rational thought. Unfortunately, these attribute tends to automatically take one out of the running for any political office in one way or another, let alone the highest one in the nation. So I keep an eye on him for a few months, fully expecting to him to say or do something stupid at some point that would leave me shaking my head and switching the channel back over to Family Guy in disgust. Or that he'll lose the early primaries to some wealthy old dickwads. Or he might drop out of the race for some other unknown reason.

Remarkably, none of those have happened. So I do my civic duty and go online to see how I can lend my non-monetary support for Mr. Candidate and right away I am reminded why I hate the Democratic party. I go to democrats.org, foolishly believing that they would have a prominently-placed section on there somewhere about how Joe Q. Public can help vote for their chosen candidate in the primaries. Nope. The front page is devoted entirely and I do mean entirely to trashing Republicans. Good grief. I couldn't find anything about voting anywhere. I thought the point of a political party was to organize and mobilize support among the populace? I also checked the Republican website for good measure and although there is a bit more "substance" on their site, still the biggest headline on the site declared, "Democrat Vision is Wrong for America". Okaaay then.

I was only able to find out how to vote for my candidate by going to his website, although to be honest the information was relatively hard to find. There I finally learned what I had to do, although not when and where. (Another Google search got me that information as well.) Almost none of the other candidates have websites that actually tell you what to do in order to vote for them. In fact, it's hard to get anywhere without accidentally ending up on their money donations page.

What kind of retarded country do we live in where it's quite nearly impossible to figure out how to vote for people you want to see in office? The only time you see the media or anyone else encouraging people to go out and vote is during the final presidential election, which is arguably where you have the least possible influence on the results. In fact, based on everything I've been reading this afternoon, the whole system seems intentionally designed to keep you under the impression that you, as an individual, have absolutely no influence on how things will play out. Nevertheless, I'll be at the local polling station on January 15th to do my best anyway.

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:26:29 GMT

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the most awesome thing ever to exist in the whole entire world:

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:09:14 GMT

So, I'm two and a half weeks into my new job at Liquid Web. I was worried like heck that I wouldn't like it, but I'm glad I was wrong.

Pros: local drive, free beverages, awesome lounge/breakroom, real furniture, loads of geeks, challenging work, hands-off management style

Cons: odd shifts, don't know many people yet, sit in chair all day, crappy monitor

Also, I was reading the handbook [wiki article] today and just noticed that one of the many perks of working here is free server colocation. Awesome, since I was recently given a mediocre-but-capable machine that I wasn't sure what to do with. I'll probably put my website on there but I'm not sure what else to do with it besides that.

Now, I'm not any kind of music reviewing person, but I have to say I've been digging the new Underworld album, Oblivion with Bells. After A Hundred Days Off, I was pretty well certain that Underworld was dead when Darren Emerson left the group. So I wasn't even paying attention anymore until ghostlemur mentioned the new album in her journal. So far, most of it is actually kinda boring. Maybe even a bit depressing. But three tracks stand out and one of them, Ring Road, I just can't get out of my head. Hyde and Smith, you guys are on probation for now but know you'll probably never rock again until you get someone who can stand up to Hyde and say, "wait wait wait, this track needs to have SOME kind of fucking beat to it."

The I.T. Crowd, Season 2.0

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 06:24:48 GMT

It took long enough, but the first episode of the second season of The I.T. Crowd finally aired a couple days ago. I took a break today from finals and learning Drupal to watch it. I'm not any kind of entertainment reviewer, but I figured I'd share my thoughts.

The episodes of the first season center around Roy and Moss's extreme nerdity and their abilities to embarrass themselves in nearly everything they do while making bad situations (humorously) much much worse. In a funny way, of course. There is a lot of energy in both the writing and the acting while Roy's over-the-top loud behavior and self-inflicted injuries keep you glued to the screen pretty well. His sidekick Moss is clearly well educated but displays a complete lack of anything resembling common sense.

I really enjoyed the first season, but most geeks I know didn't care for it all that much, so evidently it never was everybody's cup of tea to begin with. Unfortunately, a lot of what made it good in my eyes hasn't carried over to the new season so far.

It's missing a lot of funny. The I.T. office (read: basement) is no longer the same Nerd Nest it was before with comic books, fast food containers, and old computers everywhere. They cleaned it up a whole lot and in doing so removed most of the charm. (Though you don't get a chance to notice it too much because 90% of the episode takes place in a theatre after hours.) Roy's performance is much less energetic than in the first season. He never yells or shouts or mortally wounds himself at any point. Emo-boy or whatever his name is makes a short, unfunny appearance. Jen has transformed from a neurotic woman failing to cope with I.T. nerds to only a partially neurotic woman coping fantastically well with I.T. nerds. Dennis, the bad caricature of a boss, isn't even mentioned.

The main saving grace is that Moss is pretty much the same. He has the funniest line in the episode and unfortunately it's really the only funny line. The worst part about the show is that this particular plot could have been carried out by any characters on any sitcom. There's nothing here that has to do with I.T. nerds or even Roy, Moss, and Jen.

So, overall, not a good way to break into a new season. Perhaps Channel 4 realized full well that this was a weak episode and are intentionally airing it first to get it out of the way. I guess the upcoming weeks will tell for sure.

sigh

Mon, 07 May 2007 02:38:05 GMT

Sometimes, the rototiller gods demand a chain-link fence.

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 03:09:09 GMT

I hate you, Michigan.

Are you even listening to me?

I SAID I HATE YOU.

The Difference

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:28:35 GMT

http://xkcd.com/c242.html

First chuckle I've had all day and it's 30 minutes to midnight... not a good sign.

What I've been up to lately (addendum)

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 06:51:15 GMT

Snowboarding with Jeff (boss) and Eduardo (coworker). It was my first time out on the slope. The pain is tremendous. Will go again next week.

What I've been up to lately

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 08:17:10 GMT

Planning the Penguicon computer lounge
Going to GLLUG meetings
Hacking OpenWRT on my new (free) La Fonera
Listening to Off the Hook and Off the Wall on my iRiver
Installing a new washing machine in the basement
Attempting Real Music my Dean Edge 5-string bass (and learning slap on my 4-string Jay Turser MusicMan copy)
Putting Gentoo on my laptop again (Kubuntu is nice, but has a long way to go)
Learning the deep inner mysteries of Drupal
Trying to keep Michigan's hyper-corrosive salt off my Mazda Protege
Playing Final Fantasy I & II remakes on GameBoy Advance (Then IV, V, & VI)

Ditching Ma Bell

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 05:46:09 GMT

(I don't think anyone even reads my liveurinal, but heck, I feel like venting.)

If I didn't already at least hate AT&T before, I now morbidly loathe them. I'm ditching AT&T for a local phone service provider and want to explain why. Usually, service providers are courteous enough to ask why you're cancelling your relationship with them, but in this case, the local provider does all the switching so AT&T probably won't get the chance to query me. Although I fully expect that they'll ring me up in the middle of dinner and try to start pitching deals at me. Anyway, if they did call me up and ask me why I switched away from them, here are the reasons that I'd tell them to fly a kite.

Super-sized bill. My monthly local-service-only AT&T (previously SBC) bill is just short of $50 per month. When I spoke to their sales representative to set up the account, she assured me that this was the cheapest option available even though I don't want/need/use half the features that are supposed to come with it. My new local provider will be charging me a mere $16 per month for roughly the same features. (The normal rate is $20, but I got a better deal since the company that I work for is a reseller.)

Anti-competitive behavior. We all know that big businesses don't like to play by the rules, but AT&T sets the modern standard for monopolistic practices. Here in Lansing, they own the telephone poles and they own the wires, but we paid for them. When a local competitor wants to use the lines, AT&T/SBC makes it extremely difficult for the competitor to operate effectively. The local provider that I talked about above has had to file lawsuit after lawsuit against AT&T/SBC just to stay in business.

Illegal telephone tapping AT&T and the NSA have been cooperatively engaged in domestic spying on U.S. citizens. Like everyone else, I have to pay the taxes the fund the NSA's law-breaking behavior, but thankfully I do have the choice not to support AT&T's (to an extent).

Illegal Internet tappingI can't find a link to this any more due to all the Google hits for the case above, but before the illegal wiretapping snafu hit public, AT&T was strongly suspected of sending bit-for-bit copies of Internet traffic straight to the government. A whistleblower stepped forward with evidence of a "secret room" that even top-level technicians had no physical access to. He also found documentation and job orders for the installation of equipment that had no other use than for spying on all Internet traffic that flowed through the backbone facility. Worse yet, you didn't need to be an AT&T customer to have your data spied upon, because the facility was supposedly a major Internet hub in the region. (California, I think.)

Disconnecting my DSL. This is more of a concrete example of the anti-competitive point above. I have two pairs of telephone lines connected to my house: one is a voice line through AT&T, the other is a DSL line through the same local provider that I've been talking about throughout this entry. One week ago, there was a lot of static on the voice line and eventually there was no dialtone at all. No problem with the DSL line at any time. I create a repair ticket through AT&T's website. A couple days later, a technician comes out. Fixes the voice line. DSL is no longer working, even though it was a completely different line.

Now here's the fun bit. I call up AT&T and basically exclaim in the most polite manner possible, "WTF?" I asked the support representative to create a ticket to reconnect my DSL. Here's a hostile re-enactment of that conversation.

Me: Please reconnect my DSL line which your blundering idiot screwed up when trying to fix my voice line.

AT&T: Our system doesn't show that you have a DSL line...

Me: Nice try. My DSL is through a local provider.

AT&T: Oh. Well in that case, you should contact the technical support department of your DSL company.

Me: Uh, no. YOU GUYS fucked it up, why should they have to fix it?

AT&T: Well, sir, legalities prohibit me from sending a technician out to an AT&T technician to repair your DSL line from another provider. Your provider has to send us the work order to fix the line.

Me: Okay, then don't legalities also prohibit your technician from disconnecting my working DSL line from another provider?

AT&T: Err, uh, ... [stuttering] ...human error... [more stuttering]

Me: So you're not going to fix your own mistake without wasting the time of my provider, huh?

AT&T: No.

Me: Okay, bye.

So I call up the local provider (oh screw it, their name is ACD.net) and they put in a trouble ticket to AT&T. Remember, AT&T owns all the lines, so they are the only ones who can futz with them. The technician comes out today and knocks on my front door:

AT&T: Hi there, my name's so-and-so with AT&T and I was sent out to check on your DSL line. Everything looks fine, so I'm just going to head out now...

Me: But my DSL is still down.

AT&T: I was only sent out to check the line itself, which seems to be okay. If you're not getting a signal, you need to talk to your provider. See ya! [Literally bolts to his minivan.]

Me: But... my DSL is still down...

So now I get to wait until Monday morning before I can tell ACD that AT&T didn't actually fix anything. I happen to know most of the support guys and can probably get one of them to take care of it right away. It's just that I was deliberately trying to avoid making an issue of it because they're always extremely busy.

I've dealt with a lot of relatively crap companies over the years, but AT&T has far exceeded any other company by managing to acquire a monopoly not only on the nation's telecommunications infrastructure, but also on the nation's total available quantity of both evil and stupid. Good riddance to you, AT&T.

vehicular conveyance

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 06:00:38 GMT

Last weekend, I stopped my classic '92 Topaz for gaggle of geese that were crossing the road in a most unhurried manner. Unfortunately, a few seconds later, the car approaching from behind didn't stop for me. Aside from some fantastic neck pain for the next few days, I survived intact but I'm afraid the Topaz didn't fare so well. (The geese were entirely indifferent to the whole thing and waddled off before the emergency personnel arrived.)

I'm thus in the market for a new (to me) pre-owned car. Something like a Focus, Jetta, Camry, Accord, Civic, or similar. Trying to stay in the $5000-$8000 range, under 100k miles, preferably 4 cylinders, and 1999 or newer. But nearly any decent deal would be considered. If any Michiganders here know of such a car currently up for sale and could pass along the info, I would be in your debt.

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:57:23 GMT

Just saw that MS iPod packaging video. Nicely done.

But my question is, what is the glorious music playing throughout? I plan to listen to it night and day until I get so sick of it that I just stash it under Misc folder in my MP3 collection. Then, 5 years from now, I'll run across it while cleaning out MP3s and go, "Dang! That is a good song! Why did I ever stash it in here?!"

want me flashboom

Fri, 26 May 2006 03:25:02 GMT

Earlier today, the NWS was predicting an 80% chance of thunderstormy goodness for tonight. And there were some wicked-nice cells moving into the state and off the water, causing Severe Weather Warnings and mayhem along their path. We got a bit of rain early on and now the likelihood of thunderstorms has decreased to 40%. Not bloody likely, the radar and satellite imagery is all clear. It'll just be a quiet humid crappy night. Got my hopes up for nothing.

Ahhh...

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 06:03:53 GMT

What a wonderful feeling it is to bash out the last sentence of an 8-page final paper with 5 minutes left to go before the deadline. I'm getting good at this. These online classes are doing wonders at maintaining my procrastination tendencies. I'm trying to remember the last time I actually bothered to turn in an assignment early. Now if only I can manage to wake up in 4 hours for work...

All of these sentences, I can type with only my left hand!

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 19:21:00 GMT

Rats were darted at weaved wart carts.
Great cat farts are fed vast deer cards.
Bezzer saw fatter vets bet at targeted bat caves.

trying to post a picture

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 04:35:24 GMT

Found this on the interwebs.

earth to palom

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 03:19:12 GMT

Palom? WTF, man?

FF7:AC = mind-numbingly good

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 05:43:17 GMT

I just finished watching Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Holy. Freaking. Crap.

It's good. DAMN good. The story: excellent. The animation: better than anything else currently existing, naturally. The music: familiar, in a good way. I guess my only real complaint is that it felt way too short. With Final Fantasy, you're used to the story playing out over the space of weeks or months, so even though AC is slightly longer than the average movie, it still felt like it was over too soon. This is not to say that the ending didn't tie things off rather nicely, though, because it did.

Can't wait for the DVD.

here we go

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 03:07:49 GMT

Welp, I'm going overseas for the first time in my life. The air refueling wing that I'm a member of (in the Air Force Reserves, of course) is getting deployed to the Middle East in November. In my nearly seven years of military service, this is the first time that I'll be actually "going somewhere" besides Bumfuck Alpena. That we're deploying is not exactly sensitive information and the base that we'll be arriving at has been doing midair refueling sorties for ages. Still, I want to err on the side of caution and not reveal the exact destination until we're actually there. (Mainly so as to avoid a commander-sized bitchslap.)

I'm in the Combat Crew Communication shop. Our job is pretty simple: we build kits containing charts, information, and cryptographic materials. Everything that the aircrew will need to communicate with the ground and other aircraft during their mission. When they come back, we recover the kits and lock the classified bits up in a safe. Piece of cake, really. Although our shop is small, we'll be dividing the month-long deployment into two rotations. Half of us will go the first two weeks of November, the other half go the last two. I'm in the second rotation, so I'll miss Thanksgiving.

We pretty much have our job down-pat and can do it blindfolded. Based on what Intel says, we shouldn't expect much, if any threat from suicide bombers and the like. So no worries there. Right now, we're mostly waiting to hear more about what life is going like at the receiving base. If there's anything to do during downtime, what the food is like, whether we have the luxury of sleeping in buildings or if it's going to be Tent City over there. The shop supervisor has assured me that the worst part is going to be the trip back. 13+ hours on a noisy, boring KC-135 tanker aircraft. The second worst part will be the trip there. (Only 10 hours.)

So, as I said in the previous post, this will prove interesting. I'm going to try like hell to bring my laptop with me and I'll likewise try to keep this lj updated while I'm there.

I may not have anything better to do. ^^

Edit: Oh drat, I forgot to mention the cowpox! Bah, maybe next time.

blar

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 05:40:23 GMT

I find it highly amusing that Lansing refers to itself as, "the car capital of Michigan."

Wish I had more time to post to this thing. :( The next update should be more interesting. Hint: it involves cowpox.

assess the situation!

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 23:11:24 GMT

Sometimes the Intarweb is a wacky place. I was googling for images of the California fault lines and ran across this little gem.

In case the ad is taken down, this is nearly what it says.

Getting a divorce?
Assess the situation.
Don't make any decisions you may regret later...
DOWNLOAD THE FORMS NOW."

Sincerely,
Your Friends at DivorcePlace.com

No pressure, right?

P.S. Is there any way to get more userpics without shelling out cash?

delicious lamb or whatever

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:22:44 GMT

Woo! I just invented the breakfast gyro:

pita

gyro meat

hash browns

scrambled egg

hot green authentic Mexican salsa (optional)

Some day I need to get an el-cheapo digital camera so that I can upload pictures of momentous occasions such as these.

silent all these years

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 05:11:26 GMT

It seems as though all my good old IRC friends have gotten lives or something. A bunch of them have journals here, though, so I'm going to give this LiveJournal thingy a try.

What's been going on with me of late?

I work for a company in DeWitt doing things ranging from helldesk support to Linux and Windows terminal servers to VoIP deployments. The electric bass and I have become good friends over the last year. El Wife and I bought a house a few months back and have been slowly fixing it up as we have time.

Of course, if you follow my wife's reasoning, if you have a new house you just GOTTA HAVE a new dog to go with it. So we rescued a cute little Akita/St. Bernard mix that we named Akira. I'm puzzled, though, that she doesn't resemble a St. Bernard at all and only her markings make her look even slightly Akita. Wacky.

WEhee!

Sun, 12 Dec 2004 19:20:28 GMT

I'm boring!