Boom
Wasn't quite sure what it was at first, but we definitely felt it. I drive past this plant everytime I drive into town, it's about 1500 feet away from my house down the hill.
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October 30, 2003
October 28, 2003
Cool light show ahead for those at the higher latitudes
The third largest solar flare in recorded history just lit off earlier today and is heading this way. Cool video of it is available from the SOHO website here.
October 24, 2003
Paging Mr. Bowman, Mr. Dave Bowman
October 23, 2003
Dumb thing Service Reps have to say
Anyone who has called a business in the past ten years has been forced to listen to the follwing:
"ThankyouforcallingJoeBlowFloristwherewehavetheexclusiveAl-Quedabouquetonsalefor$29.95, how can I help you today?"
In the world of business it obviously helps to advertise your specials to all of your customers. At first it was annoying, but now people tune it out like TV commercials. But now-a-days in order to one-up each other, we now have advertisements in the middle of calls...like my last call to SBC.
I counted at least four attempts to get me to ask about "New and Exciting Services from SBC" like DIAL-TONE!, CALL WAITING!, and the ever popular CALL IGNORING SERVICE FOR ONLY $3.95 PER MONTH, WE WILL DISCONNECT YOUR PHONE LINE FOR A MONTH SO THAT YOU CAN ENJOY THE PEACE AND QUIET THAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS YEARNED FOR!!!!
OK, I'm kidding on the last one. But the clueless yips with most phone companies try to upsell you into anything that means more dedicated revenue for them. Same as my last call to them where I was told I could save big dollars on my phone bill, get unlimited local calling, or save big money on my Local Long Distance calling, all this after I wanted to add Call Forwarding to my line.
But I can't blame the CSR. When I left the clutches of GTE several years ago, people were being graded on the number of attempts they made to sell something during a call. It didn't matter if it was a disconnect, you should make at least two tries to upsell the customer on something or get canned. And at decent paying CSR jobs, you understand why people are will to do stupid circus tricks like that.
But to top it off at the end, the rep in her best fake-interest voice said "Now Brian, I have to ask you a question. How would you rate my service to you today?"
"Oh, I'd rate it so well I'm going to have to write about it...." :-)
October 21, 2003
Good Intentions and old AC/DC tunes
Everyone knows the old saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions...". Not everyone follows that advice.
Count me in as one of them.
For the past two weeks, I've been working on an issue that just won't die. A customer of mine has a router which will work on every other pathway except for this one. We've shipped out different pieces of equipment and swapped circuits to no avail. And now to top things off, the plan that we had in place, almost electrocuted one of our techs.
All this, for a favor, for a friend.
When someone tells you "That's not my job", maybe it's not because of laziness but because of experience.
October 20, 2003
Reason #973 why I haven't flown since 9/11
Thanks to Nathaniel T. Heatwole.
If you don't know who he is, he is the guy accused of smuggling box-cutter's onto a Southwest airlines jet last week.
#1. He should be charged with bringing an unauthorized item aboard an airplane and given the absolute minimum sentence possible.
#2. He should be given a job with the TSA and just remind them now frigging clueless this whole system is.
People don't seem to understand. When you have 1,000+ people coming and going on an airplane every single day, the chances that someone will get something "banned" on board are going to be astronomical.
And I don't think the government realizes that the whole "terrorist crashing a plane into a building" trick isn't going to work anymore. Think about it, if a group of guys with boxcutters try to hijack a plane, the sorry idiots are going to be given a first-class seat in front of an engine. 9/11 worked because the poeple on the planes thought they were going to land and have demands given for their release. On the last plane, they found out the truth and fought back.
But that's not my point. My point is with the obtrusive, stupid, and totally useless policies of the TSA which are supposed to protect us from terrorists hijacking planes and crashing them into large buildings. The policies of the TSA make it completely unfriendly and unworthy to travel by plane anywhere. I'm not worried about dying on a blown-up airplane; the odds of that happening are close to nil. I am worried about missing my flight because Joe Blow in Security doesn't like my bitchy kids and holds us back for a week.
So this is my request to President Bush. It isn't the boxcutters that are going to get you, and it's not the people on the planes. Starting looking somewhere else...
Government Mandated "Culture" Protection
And of course, we're NOT talking about the Patriot Act or anything else along the lines of "Protecting the American People from the Scourge of other Peoples and Cultures....".
Try the other way around.
Th UN Convention on "Cultural Diversity" is meeting to discuss adopting a new plans that would allow countries to treat flims, plays, and other entertainment items outside of normal trade agreements. Which means that if the government of Canada wants to tax to oblivion the movie "Canadian Bacon", they can do so in the name of preserving their cultural heritage.
Or lets just call it what it should be called. The "Anti-American Cultural Act". The AACA would prevent countries like China from presenting shows as dreadful as "Everyone Loves Raymond" or the culture-destroying "CSI: Miami" in public or private. Since these shows could be "damaging" to society and culture as a whole, you know that it would only be a short step to start BANNING anything that is outside a countries "native culture". Once again, allowing governments to choose what it's people should watch.
All brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood UN. The people in the nice blue hats....
October 15, 2003
Things that would be nice in my lifetime
1. Losing 80 pounds.
2. Retiring at 50.
3. Watching a Chicago baseball team win a World Series.
Foul Balls and Foul Fans
Everyone has seen the infamous foul ball video from last night's Cubs/Marlins game where the guy was trying for the foul ball in the seats and interfered with Moises Alou. And while opinions have run rampant about how he interfered with the catch, one thing remains the same.
This guy's life is ruined.
Last night, he was an anonymous Cubs fan. Today, thanks to the Smoking Gun and the Chicago Sun-Times, he's been named. Immediately the press has besiged his house and his company told him that it wasn't a good idea if he came into work today.
There are a whole bunch of people who would love to blame this on this one guy. He messed up catching a foul ball that would have, at worst, landed on the railing in front of him. Nevermind that it was bad pitching and two intentional walks that really screwed the game IMHO. It was bad playing by the Cubs, which if you watched last night's game, was noticible in the 7th inning.
But now this guy literally has to go into hiding. Everyone from Fark to the NG's to TV stations are talking about lynching, beating, and destroying this guy's life.
But now Cubs fans can be proud. They have a real live scapegoat curse to deal with.....
October 13, 2003
Is it me....
Every time I see Joe Torre, I just want to hand him a bottle of Maalox.
Secondhand Lions
You want to talk about surprising movies, this is one of them....
Spent the first three minutes in the theater with a huge grin on my face as they ran the trailer for LOTR, Return of the King. Let me ask New Line Cinema something, do they really have to run promos for this movie? I mean, there is absolutely no way this movie could bomb especially after the first two? But I digress....
Kids were jumping up and down about going to see this movie for the past couple of weeks. Yes the girls are huge kitty cat fans, and Tyler will go anywhere as long as there's free popcorn involved. I truly expected to watch big kitty cat go running around and kids to squeal and I would play chess on my cell phone. That happily (for me) didn't happen.
This movie is awesome. This basic plot revolves around Haley Joel Osment's character who gets dumped off by his neglectful mom at his two uncles house, whom he has never met before. Kid grows up, mom comes back, he doesn't leave. End of plot. But in between, the script writing, the acting, and the producing are stellar. And the kitty cat shots take up all of five minutes....
IMDB has a much better writeup than I could ever do. Go read it first. :-)
If you get a chance, see it. I will be impatiently waiting for it to be added to my DVD collection...
October 12, 2003
James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party
One of Eddie Murphy's best skits on SNL. Now that I can run my own local version of this since the new addition is done. Nothing like sitting in 100 degree water after a long weekend of cleaning garages, assembling a basketball goal, and running kids all over creation.
October 6, 2003
Why our kids suck at Geography
I look forward to Monday nights. No seriously, it's not because of football or anything along those lines. It's because I get to play uber-dad and spend some time with my daughter in between her various dance classes; jazz, tap, and "hip-hop" (a.k.a. Pole Dancing 101, IMHO).
Anyhow, this gives us some really good "daddy-daughter" time during the dinner break between her lessons. Especially now since she's twelve and I'm slowly descending into early senility and definitel uncoolness. Tonight's choice of fast food was Arby's and the main subject was Geography, specifically the various countries of Europe. So over a Ham & Cheese, we delve into her worksheet of Europe.
Except this one forgot to keep up with the times. The entire Balkans area is one big blue blob, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia don't exist and the entire eastern half of the map has the following acronym:
U.S.S.R.
The map that my daughter is coloring is over ten years old. Doing the math, Lithuania became independent in 1990. This means the photocopied worksheet my daughter is working on is older than she is. Maybe I've missed it, but exactly how hard is it to find an updated "fill-in-the-blank" map which would show the demise of the "Eastern Bloc" which only occured, say, thirteen years ago.
Normally I would be shocked and surprised at the total cluelessness of the situation, except this is slowly becoming par for the course in our schools today. Instead of teachers spending time on teaching, they now are part of the bureaucracy spending time in textbook review committees and other non-teaching activities.
But in between meetings, could someone go to Kinko's and make a copy of this?
