Today has been a moderately productive day. I got some junk done around the house and listed a few old videos on eBay (the ones that I like so much I'm replacing them with DVD). I've already got a bid on the Riverdance video.
I see that the second season of Xena: Warrior Princess is now available on DVD. *sigh* Just what I need, another temptation to spend money. Yes, I'm a Xena fan... I guess we can add that to the very long list of "gay" traits that I have (although Xena fandom is primarily a stereotype pertaining to gay women, not gay men). I always enjoyed the campy humor in that show, such as the time that Xena entered the "Miss Known World" beauty pageant. *snicker*
Forgot to mention that I found a WiFi hot spot in Union Station and took a look at it -- unfortunately, it's pretty pricey, five dollars an hour or ten dollars a day, so I didn't take it for a spin. It's clearly aimed at the business traveler who needs to get some work done while waiting for a train.
I just finished watching the final episode of "M*A*S*H". After twenty years, it's still very poignant.
The past several days have been rather routine.
We had another fierce storm on Wednesday, so dinner with Rob had to wait until Thursday. It was a fairly short evening. We went to a little Cajun place called "Louisiana Express". Most of the food there was good. The crawfish bisque, in particular, was a very pleasant surprise -- I don't think I'd ever tried crawfish before, and it's a very good seafood.
I went to Union Station yesterday to mail a package to one of my eBay winning bidders, have some breakfast, and finally catch up on all my newspapers (I had been several days behind all week). While I was having breakfast, a homeless man came up to me and asked me for a handout. I shook my head and quietly said "no", whereupon he called me a "f---ing faggot" and stormed off. Hey, pal, you're the one was intruding on me, not the other way around. I was quietly minding my own business, eating breakfast and reading my newspaper, when you interrupted me and asked me to give you money, even though I don't know you, then you curse me out for not wanting to be bothered? If anything, I should be annoyed at you, not the other way around. Talk about chutzpah, sheesh. Gotta love the human race.
Anyway. I got caught up on my newspapers and headed to the theater to see "S.W.A.T.", writing several letters while I was waiting for the movie to start. The film is so-so -- like "Freddy vs. Jason", it spends too much time on the set-up before actually getting to the story.
Must get back to sorting thru my inbox, then work on a letter to Denise. And, of course, I've got things to do around the house.
Wow, where the hell do I start?
So I left the office yesterday afternoon around 5-ish, not long after a thunderstorm had decided to move in. When I got downstairs, everyone else was standing in the building entryway, having decided to wait the storm out. Yours truly decided to brave the rain and wind for the one block walk to the Metro. Bad call... the winds (as I later learned) were near-hurricane strength, and my umbrella did absolutely nothing to keep me dry. Also, the winds were so strong that they actually bent and snapped one of the (steel!) ribs on the umbrella. Nice start.
So I got thru my one-block walk to the Metro stop, thoroughly drenched. The ride, fortunately, went fairly uneventfully, but the weather caused delays (the rains were so heavy that they were even leaking into the Ballston Metro station underground onto the tracks). I finally managed to make it to the Silver Spring Metro station to catch the 6:30 bus back to my apartment, giving me just enough time to meet Rob for dinner, or so I thought...
As I was riding the bus home, it became apparent to me that the electricity in the area was out, something I hadn't noticed until after I got on the bus... thinking that there'd probably be a minor delay until Rob could get to the house, I got to my apartment, dried off a bit, and sat down in the dark to wait, unable to watch TV, listen to music, get online, or pretty much anything else because of the blackout. By 8:30, he hadn't shown up, so I called him and left a message on his machine, saying I assumed he'd gotten stuck somewhere because of the storm. He then called back a few minutes later, saying that yes, he had been stuck, had just gotten home, was still in his suit, and could we do dinner Wednesday night instead. Done.
Having nothing to do and a lot of time to do it in, I fired up the notebook computer for a little while to play Astrosquid. Unfortunately, my notebook's batteries don't last a hell of a long time, so that little distraction had to come to an end fairly shortly... I went outside to have a look at Mars, which was rather impressive considering the weather conditions (the storm had passed pretty quickly, since it was moving so fast, but it was still rather overcast). Then I went back indoors to take a nap, interrupted only briefly by the power coming back on for a few minutes around a quarter to ten, then going back out again.
Finally, around 10:30, I got a call from Denise, who did not sound good at all... she was frantic with worry over my silence after "that nasty flame I sent you right before you left work" (because of something very thoughtless that I had said to her), and I said, "Err... what flame?" not having received it. That was followed by a great deal of discussion, comfort, and reassurance on both our parts, combined with my giving her a "Reader's Digest" account of all the above, along with my assuring her that if I'm ever out of contact like that again, I'll find a way to let her know.
Whuff!
Well, Rob and I are supposed to have dinner tonight, assuming, of course, that another storm doesn't hit (which the Washington Post says is a distinct possibility). We'll have to see how it goes.
Anyone interested in reading what kind of damage the storm did to the area can take a look at the Washington Post's front page article on the storm. Last I had checked there were still some areas that hadn't fully recovered from last night's weather.
To top everything else off, my bathtub's drain is clogged, and the display on my notebook computer is now deciding to black out when it's tilted at certain angles. Wouldn't want my life to get boring, I guess.
I see in the papers that Terry Pratchett is going to be here on September 30th for a talk and (of course) autographs. I haven't read any Pratchett yet, but he's one of Denise's favorite authors. Too bad she's not going to be here for that (or will she...?) This is apparently to promote his new book, "Good Omens", co-authored with one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman. (Gaiman got first billing, so neener neener neener to Denise. *grin*)
In a mostly-unrelated matter, I see in a Sunday comic strip that (according to Tom Batiuk, anyway), the European novel tends to focus on the invididual finding his place in society, whereas science fiction tends to deal with the isolated rebel whose ideas place him in direct opposition to societal conventions. Interesting hypothesis, and it does seem to apply a great deal to science fiction (Star Trek's Captain Kirk, Star Wars' Luke Skywalker, Babylon 5's John Sheridan, or much of David Gerrold's work, most notably David Auberson in "HARLIE" and Jim McCarthy in the "Chtorr" series, or practically anything ever written by Robert Heinlein). I don't know enough about the European novel offhand to comment, though.
Just got an automatic notification from a mail server that I had tried to send them a "Sobig Worm". I'm not touching this one with a ten-foot pole (pun intended)....
Reminds me of that old gag from some years ago about how technicians should always have spare mouse balls. :^)
Seen a while back in a shopping mall, where a booth was selling automatic massages in special massage chairs: a sign next to where one paid to sign up for massage time.
Warning
I had no idea I was such a sick puppy. And here I am casually looking at massage chairs instead of getting the hell to my doctor to treat my heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, poor circulation, fever, and all the other symptoms I didn't even know I had (including my pregnancy, which really upset me, since Denise and I have always been so careful about taking precautions). The sign wasn't finished with me yet, though.
Richard Lederer would have a field day with this one...
I've recently started wearing earplugs in public, and they have been tremendously beneficial to me -- far more than I ever would have expected. The only drawback, however, is that most other people don't know I'm wearing them, since they're largely invisible. That means that other people still try to talk to me a lot, which is one of the things I'm trying to avoid.
My sweet babboo uses an MP3 player instead, which (I would assume) does the trick better, since it makes clear, even to the casual observer, that you aren't available for conversation.
Now. Since I need to digitize my collection of 130 or so CDs (and sell them), and since I need a more effective way of blocking other people out, doesn't all of that mean that I need to buy an iPod, or perhaps a Sony Clie? Which selling the CDs will at least partially pay for? The Clie is more versatile, of course, but the iPod will hold my entire music collection. I'm not sure how well the Clie works with OS X (or if it does at all -- I would assume it does). I guess I'll have to look into it.
No link, since this strip apparently doesn't go on the web until a while after its publication, so just a transcription instead. "Sally Forth", by Francesco Marciuliano, Tuesday 19 August strip. Scene: Sally Forth is talking to her coworker.
Sally: Sometimes I think Ralph [the boss] sees me more as an office tool than as an asset. Just like this stapler... I'm right there when he needs me, but easily overlooked. I serve a function, but don't require any attention. Sometimes I think I've spent my whole life as a stapler.
Coworker: Actually, I've always seen you more as a Swiss Army Knife.
On the Metro on the way to work this morning, I was reading an article in "Express", the Washington Post's new weekday-only publication, and saw a discussion about "metrosexuals". I also Googled the word when I got to the office. I guess this word is still too new to have a firm definition, but it would appear that in most ways, I'm a metrosexual -- the only notable exception being that I'm not interested in fashion, merely choosing clothing that looks decent and that I can wear just about anywhere, and also that is durable and inexpensive.
Metrosexual. Hmm. I like it. Kind of rolls off the tongue.
I went to the Mozilla web site to download their latest browser, Firebird. It simply doesn't run on this system, and attempting to do so has made the rest of my apps behave strangely. The icons on my Internet Explorer toolbar, for example, are all black now as a result of this little experiment. (No, I haven't rebooted yet, but I intend to do so -- that will most likely solve the problem.) I guess I'll try using Mozilla instead. After using Mozilla at home for a while, I've come to like it quite a bit. Especially when compared to Internet Explorer, although that's not much of a comparison. Saying that Mozilla is a better browser than Internet Explorer is kind of like saying that I'm better in bed than Don Knotts. *snicker*
Nonpaying bidders on eBay. *grumble*
I haven't had to deal with this problem in some years -- the last time was when I listed some BMW parts for Dario a few years ago, and the winning bidder didn't pay. Now it's starting to look like I've got two auctions completed with nonpaying bidders. Both of the winners have zero feedback (big surprise).
This is a pain in the ass. I wonder whether I should start putting in my item descriptions that I won't accept bids from anyone with less than a ten rating, or something like that. I'd rather not, because it makes me look like a jerk, but nonpaying bidders are a real hassle.
On the upside, this big collection of chai (which I bought from a good seller on eBay, btw) is a lot of fun. Currently, I'm experimenting with mixing vanilla and various fruit flavors -- half vanilla, half banana is a very nice one. It tastes kind of like a banana split. Peach is OK. I don't care for raspberry very much. I think next, I'm going to experiment with mixing chocolate and the fruit flavors. Chocolate and banana sounds like a nice combination. Chocolate and peach sounds a bit more iffy. :^)
Denise and I are coming up on a year into our relationship, now, and I find myself looking over its history -- in this case, not our history so much as the history of other people's reactions and attitudes toward our relationship.
Many people have been supportive of the relationship; others have been more opposed to it (I have no idea whether this is usual or not, but I suppose it is). The odd thing I just realized, though, is that the people who are most strongly opposed to it are people who themselves have the most pronounced relationship difficulties. Three, in particular, come to mind -- I name no names.
The first is a man whose relationships typically last about three months, after which there is a huge crash-and-burn (he's done this about three or four times just in the past year alone). The second is a woman who hasn't had any kind of a relationship at all in many, many years, despite wanting one very much. And the third is a woman who is constantly getting involved with abusive, manipulating jerks (e.g., the man who routinely referred to his partner in public, in front of family, friends, and coworkers, by such terms as "whore" and "slut", among others) and who was already twice divorced when she was only 27 years old.
It seems peculiar to me that they would place such a high priority on trying to tear down my relationship with Denise, when they clearly have more immediate and pressing relationship issues in their own lives to deal with. I'm not religious at all, as everyone knows, but even so, I'm reminded of the scripture about tending to the mote in your own eye before pointing out the mote in someone else's.
I spent some time mulling it over on the subway this morning, trying to figure out why anyone would do that. The best answer I can come up with is simply that it's easier. There's very little effort involved in saying, "Denise, you should break up with Parrish," but for these people to take a look at their own problems, and try to solve them, would actually require quite a bit of work. In all fairness, I will add that these three individuals have all, at one point or another, admitted that they do, indeed, have tremendous issues they need to address in the relationship department, and for that I give them credit -- however, difficult as it often is to "kickstart yourself" and tackle such pronounced issues, that still doesn't change the fact that their highest priority needs to be putting their own house in order, not simply sitting idly and making comments about anyone else's -- especially when their own history indicates pretty clearly that they're not qualified to comment in any event.
Well, as is my wont on Saturdays, I went out to have some lunch and see a movie. I went to see Freddy versus Jason, which has received mostly lukewarm reviews -- to which I add my own lukewarm review. I'd give the film **1/2 out of **** (two-and-a-half stars out of four). The fighting between Freddy and Jason is far and away the best part of the film, and it's definitely a lot of fun; the problem is, there just isn't enough of it. The film is half over before the two of them even start to fight. Anyway, if you're into the campy humor of self-parodying slasher flicks, this one is worth a look.
I went to the 2 PM matinee at Union Station, thinking I'd avoid crowds; much to my surprise, though, the theater was full. Much to my further surprise, about half the audience (literally) was probably under thirteen years old. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not fatherhood material, but even I know better than to take a young child to a film that features profanity, nudity, vulgar language, drug use, and (of course) a great deal of highly pronounced violence.
Anyway. Yes, the film's not great, but it's worth a look if you're into that kind of thing. And who wins the big Freddy versus Jason battle? I'm not about to reveal that in the blog. :-) But if you really want to know how it ends, drop me an email.
The other thing I finally got around to trying yesterday was wearing earplugs in public -- I'd had several sets in my backpack for a while but never gotten around to using them until yesterday, when I was trying to read my newspaper and two "little darlings" were running around screaming in that high-pitched scream that children can generate... so I finally put in my earplugs, and I liked them so much I actually spent the rest of the day with them in, except when I was at the movies. Those things are great -- I think I'm going to make it a habit to wear them from now on.
Looking over the listings for the past few days on the TV Guide web site, I seem to have noticed a marked increased in stations showing old Schwarzenegger movies. Can't understand why...
Dunno. Maybe it's because of Mars coming so close or something, or maybe the marketplace is always like this and I've just never known it.
I listed my first season Bab 5 tapes on eBay a few weeks ago, listed it at $15 and got no bids, so I waited a week or so and listed them again at the same starting price. Now they've been bid up to $46, which is a lot more than I ever expected them to fetch. Bidding is going rather briskly on the old iBook, too. I would have thought the fact that it doesn't run on batteries would be a big detracting sales point, but apparently there are more than a few people who don't care, or who think they can fix it, or something.
Not complaining, obviously, since it does mean that I'm getting stuff out the door and extra cash in my pocket. I just think it's rather odd.
As I've said before, I've been on a big cleaning kick lately -- not just cleaning, but organizing, selling old junk on eBay, throwing out worthless crap, and so on. The project continued this evening, and it brought me to a pile of gradu that had been sitting in the spare bedroom. Apart from finding all the paperwork for my IT certifications and two spare keys to the apartment that I thought had been lost forever, I also found a whole bunch of old papers and stuff from Summer 2001, when I went to the Mensa Annual Gathering in Dallas. Couldn't help but notice this, right at the beginning of my welcoming registration materials:
"YES, you are registered for the AG!
We're really glad your coming!"
I suppose little "error" may be partially excused by the fact that we are, after all, dealing with Texans, but even so, one typically expects better from Mensa members.
At least in the following sentence, they did write "a lot" as two separate words, not as one word, "alot", which so many people do these days... I hate that. I mean, use your heads, people -- if "alot" were an actual word, what would the opposite be, "alittle"?
Well, computer-wise, this day has seriously sucked.
I got up this morning to find that the space bar on my notebook computer is malfunctioning: it doesn't depress all the way, as it was doing just fine last night. Not having time to investigate it properly, I headed to the office to do some preparations for a conference, and the event notebook is also malfunctioning: the optical drive isn't reading discs properly (it took nearly twenty minutes to copy a 45 meg file from a CD to the hard drive, which is much longer than it should take... then again, I've always had bad luck with optical drives). To top everything else off, Qwest, our former DSL provider at the office, is getting out of the DSL business, and switched us over to a DSL connection from Covad; this connection is also malfunctioning, going up and down at random intervals. Finally, Eudora at the office, which I normally use to check my personal email (to keep it separate from corporate email, which I check thru Outlook) has decided to start deleting all my mail from the mail server, even though I've always had it configured to leave the mail on the server so I could retrieve it again when I got home. The Eudora problem, at least, I've managed to fix with a kludge in the server settings, but everything else is going haywire. Oh, and Yahoo!'s group mail servers are on the fritz again, but that's so commonplace that it's scarcely worth mentioning as anything other than an added aggravation on top of everything else.
You know, I love computers, I really do, but like Richard Bach and his P-51 Mustang, sometimes you just don't get along.
So now I head out the door to go back to the house, where I'll try to get my space bar working again, and in the morning I'll probably spend at least an hour on the phone with tech support at Covad, going thru all the same troubleshooting that I always do myself, before they finally admit that they need to send a tech to the office.
I need a vacation.
Stayed up late this evening to watch the Tonight Show to see "Ahh-nuld", who has just formally announced that he is, indeed, going to run for Governor! Quite surprising, since the rumor had been that he'd been leaning against it, and that his wife, Maria Shriver, didn't want him to.
Oh, man... this is going to be great! Assuming, of course, that Schwarzenegger can get all the signatures he needs on his petition. *cough cough*
Some miscellaneous thoughts, notes, and observations, in no particular order...
First, my collection of Star Trek mugs sold on eBay, which really surprises me. There's been very, very little demand for Trek collectibles these days, if the traffic on eBay is any indication -- last I looked, which was a week or so ago, there were over a thousand items, and I doubt that even one-tenth of them had any bids (in fact, there was a brief in yesterday's Washington Times with a quote by William Shatner -- he also noticed that the Trek franchise is in a big slump lately, something that Shaw and I have been discussing a bit lately as well). I'm pleased that someone else who can actually enjoy the mugs will be getting them. A little extra cash and (hopefully) a boost in my eBay rating will also be nice pluses.
I got spammed by AT&T yesterday -- and it appears to really be from AT&T, not from someone pretending to be AT&T. What's the world coming to? Could it be just a coincidence, considering that I dropped AT&T as my long distance provider just a couple of weeks ago? One has to wonder.
Did a little searching yesterday and confirmed my suspicion that OS X has inherent problems with USB devices -- the articles I found were in reference to input devices, but if my experience is any indication, the trouble extends to storage devices as well. I'll be keeping an eye on this when I begin to contemplate my next computer purchase, needless to say. That won't be for some months yet, so I'm not too worried about it right now.
The old iBook is all cleaned up and ready to be sold -- I had an interested buyer, but I haven't heard back from him, so it looks like he's going to pass. The iBook will probably be going on eBay this evening.
The cable Internet went out again last night, probably due to an electrical storm we had moving thru the area. Fortunately, it came back up again this morning when I cycled the modem. Still, this is kind of annoying, and I have to admit the temptation to ditch Comcast and switch to DSL is coming upon me again... not to mention which, it would also be a good excuse to disconnect the cable TV as well. Television is evil. Well, 98% of it is, anyway.
Anyone have problems with cordless phones and WiFi in the same house? My new WiFi router operates on the same frequency as my cordless phone (2.4 GHz), and if I'm on the phone in the living room, I frequently notice problems with the connection -- the other day, Chad had to hang up and call me back because the call was breaking up so much. The problem seems to clear up if I move into the bedroom, which is closer to the telephone base and farther away from the WiFi router. Obviously, the only real solution is to buy a 5.0 GHz cordless phone, since that's the only solution that lets me buy new toys. :-)
Received a PowerPoint presentation from Rob yesterday with some slides taken in Iraq. Rob was opposed to the war but still believes (as I do) that Hussein had WMD's. The slides he sent were a pretty good indication of how easy it is to hide stuff in the Iraqi desert. These troops were digging up a Foxbat that Hussein had completely buried in sand and rubble. A Foxbat is not a small piece of equipment to hide -- but even so, it took US troops several months to find this one. Hiding chemicals and germs would be a much easier task, so it's not really all that surprising -- yet -- that we haven't found any. If we still haven't found any in six or twelve months, my feelings will probably start to change. If anyone would like to see the slide show, please feel free to drop me a line. It's pretty interesting. (Rob also reports, btw, that when he was in Iraq during the Gulf War, the tactics were even more cynical -- the Iraqis often kept their weaponry, fighters, and so forth in archeologically significant locations, hoping that they wouldn't be attacked there by U.S. forces for fear of damaging historically significant locations and/or items. That's revolting, but not really surprising.)
Hmm. As one may imagine, I've been giving this little situation a good deal of thought since last night, and while sorting thru listmail this morning, I recalled a certain parallel that I had read about in my youth.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell was offered a position at the College of the City of New York in the early 1940s. Russell, of course, is well known for his vitriolic diatribes against religion, and there was a prompt uproar across the nation that this "godless Brit" was going to have this opportunity to "poison the minds of our youth". The attacks on his character flew fast and furious. At the beginning of all this, he issued a brief statement, in response to one of the early attacks by a particular clergyman (which makes it all the more entertaining that I'm using it myself to comment on the current situation).
Russell said, "I have no wish to answer Bishop Manning's attack. . . . Anyone who decides in youth both to think and to speak honestly, regardless of hostility and misrepresentation, expects such attacks and soon learns that it is best to ignore them."
Wise man, Bertrand Russell. I think I'll start re-reading him.
So it's Sunday night again (by the time I finish this entry, it will be Monday morning), and I've had a reasonably good weekend. I saw the new "Tomb Raider" flick on Friday evening -- don't bother.
The weekend has been relatively uneventful. I spent some time this evening reading James Randi's web site, which I'm going to return to after I finish this blog entry. James Randi is the man, in more ways than I can count. Also learned, from reading over his old weekly newsletters, that I am a "bright". That's kind of neat.
Got a phone call from Chad this afternoon -- he's doing well, very little ever changes with him, which is not necessarily a bad thing. After that, I went out for a little while to get some lunch and read the paper, wasted some more time surfing the net, wrote a few letters, and received a phone call from Shaw. To answer your question, btw, yes, I typically do answer my phone when I'm home -- most of my phone calls are from telemarketers, whom I simply hang up on without saying anything (except for those exceptionally rare occasions when they're asking abut something I might actually be interested in). If I'm IM'ing with someone, though, I'll usually let the machine get it.
I'm probably going to be alone at the office for most of this week, which will be nice. I prefer the smallest amount of interruption and human contact possible.
*yawns mightily* Better close this entry and get ready for bed. Well, maybe I'll read some more of James Randi's site first. I really like him -- I wish there were more people in the world who thought the way he does.
Just got another phone call that went like this.
"Hello, Mr. Knight, I'm Miss Jones with the Department of Redundancy Department. We're registering someone to attend your conference in September. I'm calling to let you know that we'll be sending you a fax later this afternoon. Goodbye".
OK. This caller has managed to waste her own time -- and, more importantly, mine -- by calling me to tell me something that I'm already going to know pretty soon anyway. They did not request any additional information or anything else like that. To me, this means that the phone call is, in Star Trek parlance, "dunsel" -- it serves no useful purpose. And what really surprises me is that I get calls like this all the time. To me, this would be like me calling Shaw or Denise and saying, "Hello, this is Parrish. I'm still living in Silver Spring, and my name hasn't changed. Christmas is still on December 25th. Goodbye."
Why do people do things that are completely pointless and that just waste everyone's time?