Monday, July 28, 2003

Weekend Wrapup - Party

We had a party on Saturday. It was one of Christine's big parties she has a few times a year, and while we invited a lot of people, only a few showed up this time. It's been a bad month for some of our friends. Two sets of couples were unable to go due to a serious illness in the family, one had to go to a wedding of her brother's fraternity brother (she ditched that and joined us later), and other people had various issues. But that was okay, we did still manage to have a lot of people over.

The first part was the Partylight Candle party our friend Moria was hosting. It was a success, but not many people stayed for the party part afterwards (many were friends and relatives of friends, who came only because someone knew them). But afterwards, we had Missie, Sara, Nate, Jen, BJ, Cjae, Sean, and Louann. We drank, played "Apples to Apples," "Lunch Money," and "Fluxx." Christine went to bed early (11:30), but I stayed up late until 4am, having neat talks with Missie, Sara, Sean, and Louann.

All Sunday, I set up a small Red Hat server group for the heavy week coming up.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:49 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Another golden bullet

One of my best friends, Brad, host of this site, got laid off today.

He certainly doesn't feel sorry for himself, and he is relieved because he's hated working there SO MUCH, it's immeasurable. I think it was driving him to an early grave. The only reason he stayed on was that quitting doesn't look good on a resume, the tech market is still bad, and he wanted in on any severance and unemployment that he could only get if laid off or fired. But he had to work for one of the worst-run tech places I have ever seen. I mean, some days I deal with potheads and the clueless, but that's NOTHING compared to the twisted crap Brad had to deal with. I mean... damn! But he's probably going to celebrate because not only does he not have to work in hell anymore, but he's probably going to get severance, AND he already has a cushion of money to last him well into next year at his current rate of living (smart man); longer if he lives frugally. He's discussed things like getting out of the tech industry altogether, and maybe become a bartender. IT just burned him out. He had one really great company where he started from the bottom, and worked his way up... then got laid off, went to work for another company that went out of business, then went to another place that was terrible, and then went to yet ANOTHER place, where he just got laid off. The last three places just left a sour taste in his mouth, and I could see the change in him from happy-go-lucky ex-actor to angry and bitter. He was so hoping to get laid off, for almost a year, and today... he got his wish.

I am happy for him, and while he's certainly going to be okay for the next few years or so, the whole "laid off" stigma puts a nervous fire in my belly.

See, nothing is stable anymore. I mean, right now, at this very moment, I do very valuable work for my company. Without my highly praised work, everything would go to pieces in my department. But that doesn't mean I have job security. One day, out of the blue, they could lay off or outsource my whole department. I could argue that the quality of the work would suffer, but to a big company like this, it's like arguing that a Kia is a crappy car compared to the Cadillac. It's true, but at a savings of 75%... "We'll make do," says the bottom line. While my company's execs would get huge multimillion dollar bonuses, I will have to face my family and tell them we have to move within two months if we are to survive.

This is very nerve-wracking, and while I try to plan for this calamity as best I can, you just never know. I mean, you kind of hope for the "good work = stable work," but that's just not good enough. Where Christine grew up, in Keyser, West Virginia, they only really had four main sources of income for the town once the coal was all mined up: the chicken plant, the glass plant, the plastics plant, and the paper mill. The chicken plant moved, and the glass and plastic plant closed down, leaving Westvaco, the paper mill. Whole towns died. There's a town called Piedmont in nearby Maryland that was THE place to go for hundreds of miles around until the late 1970s. It was like West Virginia's panhandle version of Cairo. Now the town's main avenue is totally dead and deserted; it looks like the set from "Damnation Alley." It once had a population of tens of thousands, and now it has only a few thousand impoverished or retired people. Keyser is going the same way. So are a lot of small towns.

I am sure I could easily extrapolate the whole thing into one of those "the wealthiest 1% control the other 99%" or something, but I don't have all the facts, and even when I do look them up, they all conflict with each other, and the bottom line is that while trends and changes come and go, I have to take care of my family. This would be easier if I was a strong, mentally healthy person, but the fact is I am broken and probably was born defective anyway. I have no heroes, no one to look up to or model after, and no higher force to give me a hand up. I am thankful of all my friends who give me advice and tools to get me muddling about the confusing tangle that I call my world, but there's only so much they can give and sacrifice. There are times I look at my wife and son, and think "Dear God, they deserve better." At least a pillar of strength of some kind. But in our family: we are it. There is no support at all. Both our mothers are dead, fathers missing, and while Christine has siblings, they are too poor to help us if things went bad. All my relatives are across the US, or in Sweden. So it's the three of us, with four cats and two dogs, alone on a ship with no port to call home.

But things could be worse. In our daily struggles, we have grown attached to each other, and while we have our fights, faults, and foibles, we're still a unit. No one is vying for personal territory, trying to win useless arguments just for the sake of being right. There are no power struggles to dominate or shame each other. Christine does not wantonly spend money on foolish things, and always thinks about the family. CR has a good heart, deep empathy, and while I wish he'd do better in school, he's certainly not stupid by any means (I am also a victim of American education, but that's a whole 'nother 4-page rant I won't get into). Our family is pretty tight. I am fairly sure if I said, "My company sent me home, I have no more money, we'll have to sell the house and move..." they would not leave me. But it's not the leaving me I fear most, it's disappointing them. And I have no control over whether I keep my job or not, other than stay clean, work hard, and then if I do get laid off, it certainly wasn't because I was a slacker. Even Brad did his best at the work he hated, because he has the same sense of duty as I do. And in the end, that's all one can be expected to do.

I wish I could turn to this philosophy and just not worry. But I worry anyway. I worry day and night, and lose sleep because I worry so much. I get that from my mother's side. My mother worried so much, she drank herself to death. If I was a CPU, I would say my worrying takes up 15 - 30% of my computing cycles normally, and when things get bad, the worry process with take up so much computational background work, it will literally slow me down to the point it's hard to get anything done. If there is nothing in the short term to worry about, I worry about long-term. It goes back to that "find pattern and control" thing. But the problem is, it affects my health. Badly. I have had an ulcer since I was 12, and while I really *did* have something to worry about back then, I feel jilted because now I don't have NEARLY as much to worry about now, and I am still worrying. I will die young, and would be surprised if I made it past 40 without at least one stroke or heart attack. Hell, I even worry just when bad things happen to other people, even fictional people on TV.

Which is why I worry when Brad got laid off. It's like a nudge of "could happen to you," and I have done this through all the layoffs my friends and even my company has gone through. Of course, Brad is probably whooping it up as I type this, like he's gotten released from prison. I'll do all the worrying for him. I have enough for both of us.

Posted by Punkie @ 06:06 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Widget Shooting Up, the AC guy, and Red Hat prep

Widget got shot ... for his rabies! Yes, it was the annual "take the dogs to the torture chamber" known as our vet's office. Actually, it's an awesome vet's office, with a lot of friendly vets. We no longer live near them, but they were so good, we couldn't risk going anywhere else, so we pack up our animals and drive back to Rt 7, right next to Reston, at the Great Falls Animal Hospital. Widget got blood samples taken, plus his rabies and distemper shots. He also got a new license, and I now keep his old West Virginia one on my keychain as a reminder of him. The new tag goes "jangle jangle," which is funny, because the old one goes "jingle jingle." Right now, people who never had a dog have no idea what I am talking about.

Widget was not happy. Widget is so unlike Ahfu in many ways. Widget is a nervous dog, who is not as sociable as Ahfu. Widget also gets car sick almost immediately, and so the whole trip to and from the vets, he shook, drooled, and finally barfed. Widget did not yelp when he got the needles stuck in him, but he was still very sick from the medicine this morning. I hope he feels better.

In other news, our air conditioning is fixed. Turns out it was a blown capacitor, which the repair guy said was common with our model. He educated me about our system more than anyone else. He said that we had a low end, 4-pound compressor attached to a 3-pound system. Our heat exchange unit was placed badly in our house (main vent facing a wall) so it's no wonder it doesn't work so well, but he was at a loss as to what to do about it other than ripping out the system and moving it elsewhere in the house (which he said was not worth the trouble). He also said our low-end compressor would probably run for another few years without trouble, and said the only difference between my system and a very high-end system was that it needed less repair work, and that in his years of experience, the high end systems lasted as long as the low-end anyway, usually because the parts got replaced so much. I asked him about what the house inspectors said when we bought the house, about how we had a huge high-quality system, and he laughed and told me, "You know how to become a home inspector? Take a 3-week course, pass a test, and the county slaps 'house expert' on you. Hell, I train some of these yokels, and I wouldn't trust them to identify a tree, much less a good AC system." That sure explains a lot. He also told me some horror stories about Sears outsourced contracting. He was a great guy.

The repair was $100 even, and now the AC is working great.

Today starts my first teaching job as a crash course Red Hat instructor. My goal is to bring everyone in my class up to the RHCE prerequisites. Wish me luck. We start the RHCE courses next week, and if I do any diary entries, I warn you, they will be tech heavy. I have been cramming like mad before the actual courses, just to make sure I have a good head start. I heard the exam is grueling. Very hands-on. Every day, I hope to go to class, learn what I can, take good notes, and then at night repeat over and over again. I would have camped out in the guest room, but Rogue is staying there through mid-August, so I'll have to do my setup in the rec room. I am lucky to have several computers I can use for various stuff.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:21 AM EST [Link]

Monday, July 21, 2003

As many as six impossible things

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland.

That's been this weekend. I wish I could share it with you all, but all of it contains sensitive information about people they probably don't want public. It boils down to a tantiziling back cover of a novel, "Punkie finds a terrible secret about an old friend who spent time in jail for a terrible crime, finds out that two more of his friends he thought were married, are in fact, not, and are breaking up, and finally that an extremely complicated situation involving a past adoption attempt that he had thought had ended ... started a new chapter. All this, along with his stomach declaring war on him, makes for an exciting chapter in the Punk Walrus Saga series..."

Yeesh. What a weekend.

My son also turned 13, which my wife thinks is impossible. He had a small party, in which several kids and many adults were in attendance. I am now offcially the father of a teenager. God help me. So far, so good. He's pretty serious about school, he has a good heart, but I don't envy the next few years of raging hormones for him.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:54 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, July 20, 2003

Looking at the stars...

Sometimes, I see a part of who I was, and wonder what happened to that part of me.

When I was 17, I knew what I wanted to be more than anything else: an astrophysicist. I think it was Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series that got me hooked. Later PBS programs were also a job, like stuff from James Burke, David Attenburough, Philip Morrison, Richard Feynman, and even Jack Horkheimer. I did everything I could to try and learn the very essence of what made the universe run. I used to write on Index cards about x and y particles, the 4th dimension, and planetary studies. I used to go to the Smithsonian and hear lectures of people who had discovered neat stuff on other worlds. I even got Carl Sagan to autograph my Cosmos book. In the summer of 1986, I was already taking some preliminary college courses in astronomy and advanced math so that I could get a head start in the field. I was applying to several schools that offered recommended astrophysics programs, including the The University of Hawaii at Hilo (accepted, but I had to turn them down due to high out-of-state fees), The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (rejected), Carnegie Mellon (rejected), and George Mason University (accepted). One of my classmates (and still good friend), Jason Aufdenberg, is now "Dr. Aufdenberg" at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Why did he make it where I did not?

Life. In my senior year of high school, my mother committed suicide, my father threw me out, and I was on my own. I tried to resurrect the desire to go to college, but once I was on my own eating and paying rent took precedence. I almost went to George Mason, but a last minute snafu with their new computer system (long story) left me choosing between a college education or having money to live. I chose living. I got crummy retail jobs, and while I always did well in them, and sometimes they were even enjoyable, they prevented having any sort of life in the astrophysics field. My head full of science and math withered from neglect, and I didn't know just how much until last night.

I was reading "Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher" by Richard Feynman. I used to have an older copy that was worn and over-read, and then got lost about 6-8 years ago. Amazon.com recommended it to me by some computer profile they have on my purchases, and I thought having a new copy was a good idea. So I got it. And started to re-read it for the first time in probably ten years. The book was a different format that I had last time. My last copy was a yellowed, worn mass-market sized paperback that might have actually been a gift from Jason or another friend of mine, Julie Lim. I can't recall. But seeing those old diagrams on molecules brought back a whiff of my teenage years: a small vision, a smell... for a brief second, a part of my older mind creaked open, and I felt like I was back in my room as a teen, lying on an old bed in a mildew-soaked room, surrounded by Dragonlance posters and maps of the world. My cat, Daisy, might have been asleep at the foot on my bed, and the bubbling of a huge fish tank to my right provided comforting white noise. The moment lasted for less than a second; so short, I'd hardly give it a grand event title like "flashback." But it was like a sad echo. I couldn't concentrate on the book anymore. Maybe I was afraid of some flood of emotions that might come back, although that didn't happen. But I was seeing the book for the eyes of a totally different person. I recall I only had two craving obsessions to read as a kid: Dungeons and Dragons stuff and astrophysical science. I read other stuff, but never with the same intensity. Until a few years ago, when it became Harry Potter and computer manuals.

I also had difficulty accepting how much I had forgotten, and how stuff I used to know like the back of my hand now seemed disjointed and rusty. Some if it seemed so foreign that when I remembered something I hadn't thought about in almost 2 decades, it was almost like I "magically" got told what it was. I was looking as some chemical breakdown in a diagram, and saw the chemical "Pb." What the hell is Pb? I wondered. I knew Potassium was "K," so that wasn't it... and as soon as I asked aloud to my empty bedroom, my brain said, "lead." At first, the voice in my head was so soft, I didn't even hear it. I wonder if "Pb" is one of those weirdly named elements based on Latin or Greek words, like how Gold is "Au" from the Latin "aurum." (Lead). Ha ha, Tin is "Sn," for the Latin "stannum," and always confused people in chemistry, because when it is mixed with other stuff, it's always "stannic" something. (LEAD!). I wonder if Pb is lead? (LEAD! HELLO? LEAD!) I wonder why I think it's lead? Did I just make that up? No... wait, it IS lead! Oh my God, I remember now, it's from plumbum! I used to think that was hysterical; it was even funnier than tin! Plum-bum. Haw haw haw! Hee! [snort] That's what plums look like, a purple butt! I remember that epiphany in 7th grade science, when I was all of 13. Wow. I had forgotten. Like almost totally. I had forgotten that all through Prune Bran, which some might have said was as toxic as lead poisoning (rimshot). I could have used that material! I wonder how many other whispers there are, and why I don't hear them?

Part of my plan in life is to become rich enough to be self-sustaining. You know, when your money does all the work, and you just reap dividends. When I no longer HAVE to work, what will I do? Well, one fantasy is to actually go to college. How nice that would be! I could go to college, and go simply because I want to learn. I wouldn't have to worry about, "Oh, being an astrophysicist is hard. The pay sucks, the hours are even worse, the people are strange, and the observatories are lonely and smell funny!" I got told stuff like that, even from the lead astrophysics professor at George Mason! Everyone wanted to tell me not to be an astrophysicist. But If I go for academics purposes only, I can't fail! I mean, yes, I could fail exams if I got lazy, but all I'd really have to account for was myself. I would just be doing it for myself. I could become an astrophysics professor for no other reason than it would be nifty!

Posted by Punkie @ 03:59 AM EST [Link]

Friday, July 18, 2003

Need sleep... head full of tech...

Bleah...

I hate insomnia. I have had three hours sleep. I even remember which three hours. Midnight to 1am, 3am - 4am, and 6:15 - 7:15am. Hooray for stomach problems. I got a lot of reading done, though. Some e-mail...

I go for RHCE Training (Red Hat Linux) starting July 28th. It's in Manassas. I have no idea how to get there, but I'll figure out something. Someone who shall remain nameless secretly snuck me a copy of his training manual (he got his RHCE last year), so I'd know what to expect. This has proved to be very helpful, because I found out I know about 50% like the back of my hand already (setup, Samba, networking, and so on), and found 25% of it to be "wow, I was wondering if they had a command for that!" The rest are like LDAP, NIS, BIND, Sendmail, Postfix, and a few other services I don't know how to set up, which they don't seem to spend a whole lot of time on. I am still nervous about the exam, though. It's an in-your-face lab exam, which I should do well in, but it's on a time limit, which is not my forte, especially since you have barely enough time to get everything done *including* the install. I am setting up 2 Red Hat systems at my house for practice. I hope Slackware

I got my "Absolute OpenBSD" book yesterday, which I read when I got sick of Red Hat. I am glad, because this book tells you a LOT of stuff "under the hood" and "behind the scenes," and right away was worth the money because in the first chapter that talked about installing OpenBSD, I may have solved my problems of "why do my disk drives suddenly go bad?" I suspect they weren't going bad, but I set the root partition over 504mb, which is a no-no with older machines (I should have known that). Glad I didn't throw them out. One of the things that surprised me was that in the beginning, the author, Michael Lucas, tells you that OpenBSD people are generally unfriendly, non-supportive and often aloof, and this is normal. It even goes on to explain "it's by those who know for those who know and they don't feel the need to kowtow down to newbies," but I suspect the author was just a little bit upset by this. I can picture him having to write this book (he also wrote a great book about FreeBSD called "Absolute BSD: The Ultimate Guide to FreeBSD"), and coming from a FreeBSD hippie-happy-lovefest to the dark and bitter alleys of hardened system admins who tell you the world is a horrible place, and get used to it! Bluh! I think this is total crap. I understand if you get mail going "OMG i have to set up an obsd box in thre hours please help OMG WTF iz a port.gz?!?!" that you hit the delete button before you even get past the header. But I have also seen a lot of lazy "RTFM" elitist snobs act all high horse for legitimate questions in online help forums for that purpose. If the operating system wasn't so cool and well-designed, I would have ditched them faster than I ditched Amigas in the late 1980s. Rudeness is bad, no matter what the reason or "culture."

I also got Richard Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher," to replace my old copy which has been missing since two moves ago. I didn't read this yet, because all this tech and science will give me a headache. The cover and format is newer than my old one, and it doesn't have a torn and taped cover like my old one did. I also got Laurie Notaro's new book, "Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood," and I am about a third of the way through that. It makes for a good interruption when you can't sleep, and you have been reading tech manuals all day.

I am going to sleep like a drunken teen cheerleader after a kegger party when I get home, I am telling you right now.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:20 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Straight from the sewers to you!

[ I am going through an old inbox, and I found this essay I sent someone back in 1998. Heh. Enjoy. ]

Years ago, during the height of the TMNT craze, I recall a pudding pie that has the TMNT Logo, and the catch phrase, "Straight from the sewers to you!" Sounds like something Mad Magazine would have come up with, right? Well, I decided to try this concoction, knowing full well if I did not, I would die a curious man.

Long story short, green-colored vanilla pudding pie. "radioactive ooze in a turtle shell," I said on the inside wrapper. Now even though it wasn't any worse than a normal Hostess Vanilla Pudding Pie, just the catch phrases were disturbing.

First, I am not sure if I would want to eat anything that came "straight from the sewers." Like somehow the normal FDA screening was a hindrance to some urban subterranean waste by-product delicacy that just had to be released as quickly as possible to the consuming public, or at least, their children. Next, the fact I was eating something that claimed, without outside wrapper warning, that the substance would trip a Geiger counter. And they didn't stop there, but called it an "ooze," which is more a verb than a adjective or noun, like "a marathon run" or a "Tennessee Waltz." So now not only could this substance cause cell damage and hair fallout, but it wasn't even trying to hide the fact of content
description. Not "Uranium pudding," not "gamma ray connsume," and not even "ionic jelly," but something sounding more sinister, like a Hiroshima victim's suffering, "radioactive ooze." The next description, as if it wasn't bad enough, described itself as "in a turtle shell," which although is not appetizing to most western palates, takes on a more twisted meaning when you realize that a sentient, mutant turtle is presenting it on the cover. Like some cannibalistic cult from the movie C.H.U.D., or from "Yor Hunter of the Future," where he says, "Eat the meat of your enemies, it makes you strong."

It makes me wonder what was going on in the marketing department during the wrapper design. Perhaps it was a joke that had gone too far. Maybe two factions were rivaling for corporate dominance during a layoff, and submitted this work on behalf of another department as a form of subversive warfare. Or, if intentional, what the rejects must have been:

"TMNT Pudding Pies - Gangrine never tested so rot-o-licious"
"TMNT Ionic Jelly - You are ugly, and your parents really hate you"
"TMNT Gamma Ray Connsume - Heil Hitler!"

Posted by Punkie @ 01:02 PM EST [Link]

CD Pet Peeves

Hang on folks, it's another long one...

I have this CD player. It's a Samsung, I think, and I got it shortly after I got my very first CD: Hednigarna's "Trä" (a gift from my cousin Sven, and I HIGHLY recommend it, it's a blend of techno with folk music). I was still poor back then, but I got a fairly nice CD Player from an "OPEN DISPLAY" discount shelf... I forget where. It has a remote and everything.

I have used it maybe less than a few dozen times. It sits in my den now, hooked up to a stereo I also haven't used in a while (certainly not since I have moved). Is this because I don't listen to CD's? No, I have a fairly large collection; I have several hundred, which I think is a lot, but compared to some of my friends who have whole walls dedicated to their collections, is a piddling chump collection. So what do I play them on? My computer, of course. In fact, the very day I got a CD-ROM with my computer, I stopped using the stereo CD player.

Which leads me to a pet peeve. Some companies like to take advantage of their computer users, and when you load the CD-ROM into your computer, software boots, and in some cases, tries to install on your system. I have three CD's I can think of like that: Aqua's "Aquarius," "The Best of Joan Jett," and today, I ran into another one: Bjork's "Selmasongs" (a soundtrack to the film, in which she starred and pretty much annoyed everyone involved on the set). In a lot of cases, these CDs are fairly old, and want to install things like QuickTime 3.0, a primitive version of Shockwave, or even worse, their own proprietary software which changes your web browser bookmarks, and even your CD player program! Most of these things won't work on Windows 2000 or XP anymore, and the certainly don't work on Linux. I mean, thank goodness (!), but the biggest problem is that CD playing software won't recognize the CD as an audio CD, and in a few cases, renders the CD unplayable. WinAMP and XMMS can play it if you load the CD and go "Play CD: E" (or whatever), but other CD players don't have that option. What a pain! I have also head that older non-computer CD players can't play these CDs, either. You can get around that by ripping the songs off of them, and then burning your own audio CD without the software. This is what I justify as "fair use by owner."

Which gets to another peeve where I think the RIAA is full of crap. The Recording Industry Association of America is a monopoly of the five biggest record companies in the world. These companies are Universal, Sony, Warner Brothers, EMI Records, and BMG Music. If you've ever purchased a prerecorded cassette tape or CD, there's a 99% chance it was released by one of these five companies under one of their hundreds of recording/producing sub-labels. They are an entirely self-governing body, answering to no one, yet set some of the rules which manipulates artists and music fans alike. If anything, they are mostly responsible for some of the crap music you are forced to listen to (but in fairness, also almost every good artist you have ever liked). The RIAA is a greedy, profit-driven board of directors with nothing but self-interest driving their whims.

The RIAA will do anything, either with money or lobbyists, to get what they want. They are very powerful, and nothing can stop them. Until recently. The Internet started to change all of that. We've all heard of file-sharing, and how it is piracy and yatta yatta. It's true, you are taking copyrighted material, and publishing it for free. But so was radio. And TV. Until recently, the CD was a saving grace, because the RIAA could always claim CDs were of unparalleled quality, you couldn't tape them on cassette and get the same quality. With computers, now you can. That's why they turned their heads and did what they could to stop this from happening.

Now, in my case, I am pretty honest. The file trading is responsible for most of my CDs I bought. Why? Before this, I didn't buy CDs because I didn't know if the CD was any good or not. I almost never experimented to try a new artist because most of them suck, and I didn't want to spend $16.99 on that risk. But when I started getting mp3's, I could find the artists I liked, and went out and bought the CD because I didn't want to lose these songs I liked in my next hard drive crash. CDs are still great to have. But yeah, I am sure there are a ton of people who won't go buy the CDs. I can't help that. But I resent the RIAA trying to come up with encryption scheme that will render my CD unplayable, just because they are greedy.

The RIAA is also panicking because their greed-heavy model is at risk. See, when they sign up an artist, they control the music and promotion. They can literally make or break a star, based on how much money they think they'll get. Think about it: fame by money versus fame by accomplishment. That's not right. This doesn't favor the artist, because they won't take risk on new styles. This doesn't favor the fan, because the RIAA controls what the fan hears on the radio, MTV, and what's up in the record stores. Think your local Sam Goody makes those promo posters? Nope. The recording label does.

Now let's think of a different model. Suppose we have a musician, let's call him "Iceland Bill." Iceland Bill is a guy, in Iceland, who plays a mean guitar with hypnotic trance music as a back drop. Not exactly mainstream. He's got a small following, and thanks to the Internet, some guy in Kansas, who would have never even heard of him before, is now listening to his music. Iceland Bill has some of his .ogg files on his site, and some P2P sites have more of his songs. The guy in Kansas buys the CD, either from Iceland Bill directly (I did that once, got "The Bubbleflies" delivered right from Iceland), or from a local distributor.

The RIAA would stand up here and say, "But Mr. Kansas could then rip and upload all the songs off the CD, and then no one would EVER buy the CD." That's not always true. Sure, I bet it will happen, at least the totally ripping and uploading part. But Iceland Bill will have a loyal following, and he will sell CDs. The RIAA will also point out that Iceland Bill will never become rich. This is also true. Iceland Bill probably can't quit his day job at the local fishmonger. But I know a LOT of local musicians. They aren't rich either. That doesn't mean they are any less spectacular as an artist. See, in my model, people become artists for artist's sake. The essential Bohemian model for artistry. Some artists eventually will be able to make a living as artists, either by a grant, or some fans in Kansas pay for a plane ticket to fly there so he can play live (at anime conventions, we do this a LOT with artists and voiceover people). There will still be agents, distributors, and recording companies. But it won't be this huge, dominating, money-heavy system. The control of the music will be in the hands of the artists and fans. If an artist is selling stuff people don't like, no one will buy it. Artists won't become artists just for the money, kind of like writers (but we have our own, if even similar, demons in the industry).

The RIAA will lose. You can't stop filesharing, because if laws stopped anything, you'd think people would stop killing each other or drinking and driving (and that's FAR worse than filesharing). If a CD can be played, it can be ripped. And the more expensive they make things to "compensate" (that is, stay as rich as they are), they less people will buy their stuff. They are fighting a losing battle. They will try and pass laws, but you know, the great thing about being in the US is there is only so much crap us citizens will take from the government. The RIAA is trying to prevent "criminal activity" (piracy) by declaring we're all guilty, we're all pirates, and so they will treat us like unmanageable children in order to keep their wealth. They don't give a hoot about the people who buy their CDs or the artists who make them as long as we keep buying whatever they produce. They will eventually make it so complicated to play one of their CDs, that people will stop buying them. There is no way to win at this system. They will have to bend or risk breaking.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:18 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

The season for calamity

I forgot that this happens every year around this time: financial emergencies. I don't know why this happens in the summer, but from past diary entries, I can see that starting in July, and ending around September, demons of some kind come out of the woodwork and demand my money. And again, I didn't plan for this.

My air conditioning conked out. The whole shebang. Our house, which is poorly insulated, heats up like nothing else in the summer. The previous occupants made a 10' addition to the house in 1996, and the new "super-size" AC/furnace system they put in to compensate still can't handle the square footage. So they rigged some of the ductwork with several "valves" or flaps so if you want a warm rec room, you turn the some of the flaps one way, and for heating or cooling the bedrooms upstairs, you turn the flaps another way. Trouble is, they didn't label which flaps did what. Not that it matters now, the whole A/C thing is dead.

I am kind of a handyman who prides himself on knowing how any mechanical system basically works. I have always had this ability, ever since I was a little kid. A short survey of the situation showed almost right away I knew I couldn't fix it. It started last night, although now I am told that "it seemed to start over the weekend," to others, which no one notified me of until I said it was coked out. But all I know is when I took the dogs out this morning, the outer unit was making a loud noise. I looked at it, and noticed the fan was not moving. The blades just sat there, while the outside was REALLY hot to the touch. Reminds me of several motors attached to fans that have died in my life. So I turned the system off at the circuit breaker, waited a bit, and turned it back on. When the AC kicked on again, it made an even worse noise and I smelled smoke. I turned it off at the breaker and kept it off. Could be worse, I guess. See, since the A/C doesn't quite reach all the way to the end of the house, we have supplemental window units, and those are working. Also, Rogue, who is in the downstairs guest room, has her own A/C. But the rest of the house I expect to reach 100-110° F by mid-day. Yerf.

Time to call Sears. This is why I got the card, for such emergencies. Ka-CHING!

Of course, more expenses are coming. Widget is now a year old, and it's time for all the shots and stuff. The first year is always the worst. He needs all the vaccines, the stool tests, and so on. Ahfu's was over $230. Ka-CHING!

Our station wagon? Died. At least the battery did, and now it has a flat tire. We have the other car, but this is getting ridiculous. Ka-CHING!

Oh, and I know there's more to come. There always is.

Posted by Punkie @ 08:34 AM EST [Link]

Monday, July 14, 2003

Complaints about Bills

There are some complaints I have about bill paying, but not the kind you think. I pretty much owe what they charge me, so that's my own fault.

First, account numbers. I used to have a calligraphic button that said, "Here at First National, you're not just a number -- you're two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash, and then another number followed by several letters!" It's true. And it keeps getting worse. One of my bills has a 28 digit account number, which I have to write on every check. Twenty eight. Credit cards only have 16, why do these clowns need 28? My phone bills used to be simple, they were my 10-digit phone number. Then they were the phone number followed by a 4-digit number. Now, after the Verizon buyout, it's a 15 digit number followed by some letters, none of which are your phone number. WTF? All my bills ask you to "please write your account number on the check," and I understand why: if the sorting machine drops the check on the floor, they want to know who to charge.

Next, there seems to be a plethora of morons who send out perforated billing statements where the perforation is just mere millimeters shy of the fold, so that it rips on the fold, not the perforation. Then the statement is too big to fit in their pre-sized envelopes. Some statements the perforation is stronger than the actual paper. I don't know how they accomplish this, but I have ripped more statements this way.

Then there is the "Save a stamp - sign up online and pay there" accounts. I don't do this for two good reasons. One, I used to do this with Sprint and my previous cable company. Both had this problem where they didn't charge my account, and racked up late fees, and even cut off my service once. I said, "Dude, *YOU* are the idiots who forgot to charge me!!!" Sprint got so bad, I canceled automatic bill payments, and that still hasn't been sorted out. Sometimes they charge my card, sometimes they don't. It's insane! Next, most companies now won't let you use a credit card, they want access directly to your checking account. No. Way. One decimal slip on my $200 electric bill, and you've wiped my account. One of my friends went through this nightmare which just compounded problem after problem. The short story is, instead of $136, he got "deducted" $1360 by Pepco. It bounced, and they charged him a late fee, plus a bounced check fee. So did his bank. Meanwhile that froze the account, and other checks bounced. Hilarity ensued. The last reason is they will bill me whenever they like, and I can't plan around that. My previous cable company used to charge me from the first of the month until maybe the 17th, and then if it was past the 12th, they tacked on late fees. Want to know another stupid issue? Those companies that charge you for the "privilege" of paying online. My god, what gall.

I hate loans. I only have one now, for my house. I have had MANY loans over the years, partly because of this "loan rollover hell" my previous mortgage companies did. In less than two years, I had five different mortgage companies. This ended with our first refinance in 2001, and we've had the same one ever since. But add to that a student loan and two car loans, and I have seen many, many loan companies. Some bill you monthly, which I like. But then some do this "statement book" thing which I think is stupid. I have to remember to fill this thing out at the end of the month. I feel like I'm living in 1972, or some other era with food stamps. They want me to use automatic billing. Yeah. I bet they do.

The last complaint for the night is this weird phenomena where I don't get a bill for that month. It's always the same two bills, too: cable and power. Then the next month, they hit me with a late fee. I have to be on my toes and remember whether I paid the cable or power for that month, and write them my own statement, check, and mail it off. This started around the same time they wanted me to switch to online payment, so I am sure this is intentional.

I can't wait until I am rich enough to have someone do this for me. Of course, you have to make sure you hire the right people. Robert Haft, former owner of the Dart Group, had his card declined in our book store back in 1987. The irony was he owned the book store chain, and his secretary had made the purchase for him for Robert ("Bobby") to pick up at the store later that night. "Oh dear," said the secretary when we informed her the owner of the company's card was declined, "I must have forgotten to pay that one. Here try this one!" The second one worked, but my boss made a big deal to all the other managers about the first one being declined. No wonder the Haft Empire eventually crumbled.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:16 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, July 13, 2003

"Those dirty [insert ignorance here]..."

I don't often come up against racism. Part of it is because I am white, but part of it is also I hang around pretty tolerant people. So when someone does drop a line about how such-and-such people are dirty or steal or are responsible for the degredation of society, it's usually pretty shocking.

Last week, a coworker said that his religiously home-schooled daughter has head lice. It's unfortunate, but it happens sometimes. I was a bit surprised because usually it happens because the kids come into contact with someone with head lice at school or day care. But his kids are pretty isolated. I asked, "Where did she get them?" His response was shocking to say the least:

"It's because she plays with those dirty Arabs down the street, they never wash their kids."

Okay, maybe if he just had said, "dirty kids," I would have thought, "That sucks," and let him go on. But the fact he said "dirty Arabs," spoke like somehow that had something to do with it. So I wanted clarification. He explained that "You know, those people never wash as much." I told him I had never come across that, and it was an unfair and broad statement. He further defended the statement by pressing into my my sensibilities of, "You know... in those cultures... you have to admit... they don't have water..." and so on. I didn't bend. He became angry and wished my family would have head lice. That would show me.

First of all, I have met Arabic people, and none of them were dirty or smelly. In fact, they always appeared well-groomed and rather high-class, if you ask me. Their kids always seemed normal, and many were very smart and educated people. Now part of that could have been I grew up in a mid-upper class environment. Part of that could also be I have met his Majesty Prince Al-Saud, his wife, and advisor, and his money lender. Prince Al-Saud, at least when buying furniture, seemed a very congenial fellow, round and happy, with a well-groomed appearance and a nice sweater. His wife was a bit forceful, but then again, she was dropping $15,000 on furniture for her children. The moneylender and advisor were apologetic for the wife. It was pretty amusing for all of us. I had never met royalty before that, and currently, they are the only royalty I have ever met. And while it was rather sudden, no one put on airs, and certainly no one was dirty or smelly.

I have met dirty and smelly people. Most of them have been white people. Usually people with bad upbringing or an overfocused hobby of some kind. But I wouldn't say all white people are dirty and smelly. All the people I have ever met had head lice were also white people. One pair of kids I grew up with, their mom decided "the hell with it," shaved their heads, and put wooly hats on them. I kid you not. Most kids who got head lice (and we were checked yearly) got some sort of medicated treatment and it went away. But not those kid's moms. No sir, it was a punishment, they said.

And you know what? They weren't dirty or smelly, either.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:09 PM EST [Link]

Friday, July 11, 2003

I am not old... am I?

I am 34, and married for over 14 years. I don't think of age as something that means too much, except maybe accumulated experience, but that's never a guarantee, either. But recently, it's started to become an explanation.

My friends are getting divorces. It just seemed so sudden, but in the last few years, several friends of mine have split up and I began to wonder what's going on. Then it hit me: I am 34. Most of my friend are around that age, and this is the time when most first divorces occur. Same with major health problems. In fact, now deaths of people I have known for a long time are on the rise. I suddenly realized we're suffering the malaise of being an adult.

At this age, some of my single friends are also starting to worry. It was pretty sobering to hear a friend who was "only" 29 that she was upset she wasn't married and had kids. I know this girl, she'd make a great mom. She's very pretty, has no serious hang-ups, is intelligent, and fun. I nice Jewish girl! :) But she's single. She's single and somehow can't find a decent guy. She's tried, it's not like she's sitting at home playing Nintendo and eating cheetos, but every attempt to date someone has ended shortly because the person she's in love with turns out to be someone she can't be with. One was a self-confessed loner and drinker. Another was still having mommy-clinging issues. Are there decent guys out there for her?

She's also the story of a lot of my other single friends. Some of my friends, I know why they're alone. Some have issues that make them inaccessible, like grueling jobs, emotional hang-ups, and many just don't care. But most of them are decent dating material. I wish some of my cool-ass friends would have kids and pass on their genes, and I know most of them do, too. But I don't care how modern you are, if you want kids, you probably shouldn't wait to have them after 35 if you can help it. Not only for health reasons, but also, if your kid is born when you are 38, he or she will be 18 when you are 56. You will have to deal with a teen when you are in your 50s! That will be tough. But some of my single friends will have to wait that long, if current trends continue.

I will turn 35 this November. If the past age of males on my family side is any indication, I will reach the halfway point of my life at 37 or so. And time goes by faster and faster the older you get. Or at least it does for me.

And that leads to the final thing: memory. The older I get, the more past events begin to blur.

Like for instance, I can remember many of my major friends in high school: Kate Tredwell, Julie Lim, Ellen Payling-Wright, Jason Aufdenberg, Steve Moyer, and Donnalee MacLeod. But I also had a lot of "satellite friends" like Shelia Desai, Britta Carlsten, Julie Bratten, Bruce Cole, David Dedrick, and Mark Jackson. There were many more, clustered in groups and you know what? I used to know their names like the back of my hand, and now I've forgotten most of them. There was the gaming crowd, which was Vince Chang, Fred Vogel, and Nicole... something (a guy, I think his last name was Peacock). I see many more faces at the gaming tables... and I have forgotten all their names. Then there was the drama crew, and I can picture Mark... something, a red-headed guy, a girl named Lauren, and a Hawaiian girl named something Stanley, I think maybe Sarah. Then there was the art crew, and I recall David Dedrick, but he had many friends, some of whom had adventures I was in, but I have forgotten their names, too.

Last week, I was telling a take about how four of my McLean friends sat me down at a sci-fi con and tried to tell me that the girl I was dating, Christine, was from West Virginia and did you know that people from West VA were all money-digging inbred hicks who wore overalls, played the banjo, and fucked goats? I got mad at these people, and I can picture their faces... but their names eluded me. I used to be able to rattle them off, because I was so pissed at them for YEARS, and totally stopped speaking to them forever. But now I have forgotten their names. All those great actors and actresses I worked with in the county plays and in school? Forgotten. About 90% of the McLean High School Sci Fi club? Forgotten. Half of Prune Bran? Forgotten.

Conventions I have been at begin to blur together, too. It's sobering to think of kids I knew are now adults. I mean, Sara, who you see on this site in photos as one of our friends, I have known since she was nine (but she didn't hang out with us until she was 16). I begin to divide the conventions by "eras" like "This was the FanTek Frederick Era," or "The high school Balticon/Disclave Era." I have started to say, "I was at Balticon-- no, Disclave... 86? 87? Maybe it was Philcon 50..." Plus, time going faster gives the illusion of things happening recently that really happened years and years ago. Like, while talking to her, I realized I knew Rogue since 1990. Thirteen years. It seemed like much less.

Sounding like an old fart already.

Posted by Punkie @ 05:02 PM EST [Link]

Rain rain go away....

I just read that in our area, it has rained 49 of the last 60 days. We had one week where it didn't rain, and it was hot, humid, and sticky (typical DC summer, but I was in Cape Hatteras that week anyway), and then more rain. It's rained so much that we've had floods (luckily, my house is on higher ground). A lot of it has been violent rain, too, like huge thunderstorms, high winds, and one of the tornados touched down near our main campus. I got this e-mail a few days ago:

A tornado has been sited in the vicinity of our Dulles campus. Anyone on the NOVA campus is advised to get away from any windows and take shelter immediately in the interior areas of the building until further notice.

Note... they sent this by E-mail. By E-mail. Think about it for a second. If you were reading the E-mail, you wouldn't very likely wouldn't be near a window. If you were near a window... you wouldn't have seen the E-mail. Yerf. That's right, I invented an expression. Yerf.

Anyway, there are several effects these rainstorms have had that I want to complain about. First, my lawn looks nice, but that's not all good. Everything that is plant-related has been growing like crazy. My roses look nice, but the weeds in the pots can't be controlled. I can't mow the lawn while it's still wet, and the longer the grass gets, the longer it takes to dry. My lawn went weeks before I was able to mow it, and the grass got so high in my back yard, it was taller than my dogs. When I did get to mow this week, I had to empty the mower bag about ten times (normally I empty it maybe twice). My front yard hasn't been mowed yet because it started to rain just as I was starting to get to it. The trees have been growing like crazy, and I am not just talking about the ones I know are already there, I am talking about seeds and saplings springing up everywhere: in my azaleas, flowerpots, in cracks in the sidewalk and driveway, and even between the spaces of my deck boards. Since nothing gets to dry out, that gets to my second complaint: Mosquitos. They have bred like crazy in all the stagnant puddles, and even I, who doesn't get bitten much, have bumps all over my legs and arms. I am losing sleep because they itch so much. Next, my asthma has been going into overdrive, what with the pollen, mold, and mildew spores having the time of their lives. My gutters (the older ones, not the ones we got replaced) are sagging, and I am glad I got to clean them out a few months ago (I got a gutter cleaning kit). The last few times I have to get groceries, I got wet. And the thunderstorms! Oy! The power and cable keep going in and out. Every time I hear the thunder coming, I have to run around and unplug the computers from the power, phone, and LAN. Yes, they are on surge protectors, but if there's a semi-direct hit to the power lines, that won't mean much. I used to know an old Atari BBS, ARMUDIC, which lost most of its hardware in one such event. They were on surge protectors, but the voltage or nature's own was far greater than the capacitor or the fuses in the main box and the strips. They lost the computer and most of their modems (the phone lines didn't have surge protection, people always forget about them). The best solution is just to disconnect the systems from any external lines. The wind keeps blowing debris everywhere and my yard ends up with a lot of branches and trash from the alley behind us. And everything is SO DAMP!

I feel like I am living in frickin' Pacific Northwest, folks. It's like Seattle weather for days at a time. I bet I could grow Redwoods if this keeps up.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:39 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Stupid Allergies... or whatever

Ever since just before the beach trip, my allergies or something has gotten a lot worse. I used to use my inhaler only about a few times a year, but in the last few weeks, it's been almost daily. It's really hard to breathe outside especially, which limited my walking around Hatteras by quite a bit. I am exhausted all the time, yet unable to get a restful sleep. Last night was terrible, I had migraines, wheezing, and just plain "too exhautsed to sleep" syndrome. I was up until 4:30am, trying to find stuff to do, but I couldn't do too much work because after a few minutes of activity, I was short of breath and sweating profusely. I ate some chocolate, which helped a lot, and let me finally sleep in the end, but I couldn't even go to work today because I hadn't slept. I also feel kind of achey like I have a fever (but I don't) and even typing this entry has been an effort. I don't *feel* sick, like when one has a cold, just... exhausted and everything requires so much effort to do even simple tasks.

Bleah.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:40 PM EST [Link]

Monday, July 7, 2003

CastleCon Wrapup

This just got weirder as the night wore on from my last post, but that was okay by me.

Saturday night after I posted the previous entry, I wandered the halls as I usually did. At about 10 o'clock, the Art Show had their gala with a Toga theme, and they server grapes, hummus, pita bread, and apple juice. Then our friend Roberta stopped by, and I introduced her to everyone. In the process, I bumped into Rocky again, and I had been waiting to comment on his music.

It turns out he was in the middle of a poetry panel, but since there was only him, Dawt, and Miguel there, they were just chatting because they had all read their poetry the previous night. Miguel teaches poetry, and I didn't know that, and he had some positive comments to make about my bad haiku page. We also had a great discussion on whether modern poetry is meaningful or just all hack. I have been meaning to have this discussion with poets for a long time, and this was a fantastic opportunity. More people came in, and we all started discussing writing and submissions. Then Rocky read one of his pieces about food allergies, and we analyzed what made THAT poetry. I swear to god, it was one of the most satisfying hours I have ever spent at a con; it filled in some significant gaps in my knowledge of poetry.

During this time, apparently, the power went out in the hotel. Now, we were all in a dimly lit room, and we noticed nothing. But apparently, this hosed the video and computer room bad. The hotel guy came in at one point, saying that Dominion Virginia Power had a brownout in Reston, and the hotel generators had kicked in, creating a power surge. The rest of the night, there were a few more incidents like these, always in pairs: first the brownout that activated the hotel generator ... and then 15 minutes later, the generator switching back to Virginia Power.

This caused a lot of people to mill about, looking for things to do. I went to the art show, and Steve, a friend of Sean and Louann's, pulled out his acoustic guitar, and played some awesome music. But Paul and Vanora wanted to go to bed, and the art show was their room, so we moved the party to the lobby, but then Bruce asked us to more to the con suite because it was threatening to close down because they only had one volunteer. What happened next was magical, and is the core reason I go to cons and I love fandom. An impromptu concert just started. It involved Steve at first, by Moggy was there, and he played his mandolin. Then people started using empty plastic cheesy poof barrels as drums. Albedo got out his keyboard, and soon a very orchestrated concert of strings and percussion wove a tapestry of music. It was magic. It was awesome.

But then we had to go home to take care of the dogs. Christine had to get up early anyway to open the art show and get ready for auction on Sunday. We got to be at like 3am, and woke up (if you can call it that) at 9am. The rest of the day was kind of a blur, but I did art auction, and we had a few pieces generate war, but not many. Then Christine closed the art show with the valuable help of Paul, Moria, and other volunteers. I managed to get one of Mark Mandolia's pieces, one I watched his draw. It's a cool girl in a secret spy-cloak getup with some sort of blasters powered by a pack on her back. I also got some stuff to put on my monitor at work, two fiber optic carvings of a walrus and a penguin.

Our friend Travis had been to Hong Kong this spring, and gave us gifts he got for us (we haven't seen him in person since he returned). They were also copper-colored fiber optic glass, and were hanging items: one of a foo-lion (lion-dog, like Ahfu), and another of a curved vessel of some sort. Both hang from woven cords. He also gave me a small crystal ball that had been hollowed out and painted from the inside of some birds in a flowering tree. Very cool.

Christine closed the art show for the last time, because she's passing the baton to Moria. Christine has run the FanTek art show for almost 7 years, that's 14 shows, which is quite possibly the longest of anyone who ran the shows. Among the previous people were Elspeth, Darryl, Ralph (Sasquatch), and Suzi. She'll still hang out there, she doesn't want to run it anymore. It's a hard job, and Christine wants to focus more on her art and artists.

We got home, ordered Chinese food (as we always do when we come back from cons), and I started on some neglected household chores, like repairing the vacuum cleaner (punctured hose and worn belt, I patched what I could, and then ordered replacement parts), laundry, computer maintenance (fixing some registry issues with Christine's computer, doing the scandisk/defrag thing), and other household projects.

I also worked on some of the Red Hat training I have to give at work. See, I have gotten approval for RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) Rapid Track #300 at work, and I also was required to sign up some of my coworkers. Some of them needed a crash course on prerequisites, which I am to provide. This is very exciting for me, because if I pass the RHCE exam, an RHCE is a really good certification to get right now. And yes, I still plan on completing my CCNA at some point, Bruce. :-)

Oh... and Cape Hatteras Beach Trip and CastleCon pictures are up... but I suck at picture taking so the ones that came out are kind of dull.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:30 AM EST [Link]

Saturday, July 5, 2003

Castlecon - Day 2

I swear, I'll have photos of this stuff online... eventually.

Right now I am in the computer room while two caffeine-spazzed sugar kids are running about, screaming. This has been the worst point of my day.

Which means today has gone very well. It started when we got up late, but not too late because we had time enough to get coffee at Starbucks. Yes, I am a corporate whore... and how! But I got a tuna sandwich, a cheese danish, and an artery-clogging Brownie Frappachino. That sure woke me up! Good thing, too. First panel was at 11am.

My friend panel, "Living Techno-Geek in a Post Dot-com Society," was pretty filled. Bruce showed up, and had some very interesting comments about the new fad, which may just be local for this area: security clearance. I might start looking into this. At noon, I had a Punk Walrus reading, where Paul (Katsu merchant Czar), Rocky, and his friend from England, Dot, attended. I read "Punk walrus Makes Toast" again, plus some new stuff from Tony Bumper. Then I had an hour break where I got to the merchant's room and had a girl work on my back for a 15 glorious minutes (oooh... ahhh... massage). Then at 2, I went and did my "Harry Potter and the Panel of Discussion," which was packed, and everyone had some good points and questions. A lot of cross-information cleared up a lot of gaps in knowledge for everyone. Then, I totally shifted gears and held a "Computer Diary 2003: Where are we now?" I talked about the new trends in technology and computers, and then led to my 4 o'clock panel, "Tech Tales of the In-duh-vidual," where we exchanged tech horror stories. That was pretty full. At 5, I went to see CR's panel on Neo-pets, but he was doing well on his own, and since I am not into Neo-pets, he let me go early. I then went to Rocky's "Compressed Giant Montsers," which is a very art-neuveau exhibit of monsters in jars while Rocky plays some of the best trance guitar music I have ever heard. He wasn't playing a CD, put playing live with his electric guitar and many, many wa-wa pedals that were on long repeats that lopped and layered everything he played. Truly remarkable. I came for the monsters, stayed for the music. He has a CD, though, and I bought it.

That led to Masquerade, where I was asked to be non-judgemental judge. I was more of a mental judge, with all kinds of quips and snide remarks like "Janet Brady called, she wants her wig back" and "Most Likely to Stick to Refrigerator Magnets." And now it's like 9:30 in the evening. At 10, Christine is hosting the Art Show's Gala, which is having a Toga themed party. A lot of people have taught us how to properly put on a toga. Damn authentic re-enactment people... :)

I also got a room. Not that I needed one, but Cheryl needed four more rooms to make hotel block, and I wanted to help her out after all the other times she and Bruce have helped ME out...

Tomorrow, I am going to get me another one of those massages, then do the art auction. Then the weekend ends for me...

Posted by Punkie @ 09:47 PM EST [Link]

Friday, July 4, 2003

At CastleCon!

I am in the computer room, at Castlecon. It's 11:34am as I start to type this, and I am in the computer room, helping out a bit, and listing to kick-butt DDR Trance music. There aren't a whole lot of people at this con because it seems there are at least 18 other cons close by within 30 days in either direction. I don't have a whole lot today, except Opening Ceremonies.

The freebie table is full of Dell Optiplex P166 machines. Man... I had have a moratorium on taking in any more orphans less than 300mhz, because it would be stupid and silly for me to have a whole bunch of computers. Jabberwok, my old MMX 166 at home suddenly stopped seeing all the drives on the primary IDE channel, and unless it's because two hard drives went bad or the IDE cable fell out (not likely)... the motherboard might have finally died. I'll scrap what parts I can, and then junk it. Shortly afterwards, Alice, the 486/DX4 100 machine, running OpenBSD, also got a hard drive error. But I can't work on them because Rogue has all her stuff in our geust room, and I don't want to toss her stuff everywhere. The machines are not vital, so there's not hurry.

Must... resist... taking 4 P166 ... orphans... they are slow and use... use... (say it, Punkie) useless...

They don't even have CD-ROM drives!

Posted by Punkie @ 11:46 AM EST [Link]

Thursday, July 3, 2003

Not Ready for Con

CastleCon is the first con where I usually have a lot of planning beforehand, but this year, I don't. I mean, I do the Emcee thing, the Art Auction, and panels, but those don't require a whole lot of prep way before the con. But for some reason, the con snuck up on me. I mean, I knew it was coming, but because I don't do pre-reg or programming or anything big like that, I never gave the con much thought, and then a few weeks ago, Christine reminded me it's right after the beach trip. Yikes! I didn't ask for Friday off... oh, wait, it's the 4th of July. I have that off anyway. But still. Yikes!

I can't afford a hotel room this year, which is just as well, as we can't find a dog sitter. Our usual one just had her son graduate, and she has a lot of travel work at her job, so she's busy with her life right now. And Castlecon is only a 20-30 minute drive from our house. But I hate going to con with no hotel room. I know Cheryl needs the room blocks taken, but I can't do it financially right now. I think I'll have to cancel Otakon, too, for the same reason. I really like having a hotel room where I can crash during the day, watch a little TV, have a private bathroom with no Musak, keep my stuff safe... you know. It's part of the whole con experience. Now I'll have to hang around, sit in lobby chairs between my panels, and get grumpy and tired until I go home at 1am or something (whenever Art Show closes, which Christine runs), only to get up at 8, and drive back. We've done it before, and at least it's not winter now, but... fooey.

I have no idea how the 4th of July is going to work out. Last Castlecon over the 4th was on a Sunday. This time, it's a Friday, right during Opening Ceremonies. I may either play to an audience of 4 or 5, or possibly have to jazz up the stage. Some people in FanTek arranged for "Stars and Stripes" inspired Marshmallow Peeps to be there, so I am sure I'll use those.

I'll have fun anyway. It's a FanTek con, how can you not? They've never disappointed me before.

I also hurt my back again. This time it was buying a new window air conditioner for my son's room, since he broke the last one (yes, I am still bitter). I got a Maytag model at a great price at BJ's warehouse, but then hurt my back taking it through the "self-scanner." I just need to whine about this.

Ooooowww.... my baaaaack...

Thank you.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:20 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

The Crazy Bird Lady

Inspired by this. People in Denver, keep your kitties close!

When I was about 7 or 8, in my neighborhood there was this Crazy Bird Lady. Crazy Bird Lady had a son, named Vixen. Odd name for a kid, and he was a psychopath. This tall, lanky, white-haired demon used to chase neighborhood kids with a machete and even locked a few kids in the sewers (he'd open them up, drop the kid in, leave them there). He also used to have parties at his house with his drug-dealing friends. Sometimes the deals went sour. The police were there a lot.

But apart from Vixen, Crazy Bird Lady was in of herself, also deranged. Most of the time we saw her outside, she had her hair in curlers, wore a quilted housecoat, and had a cigarette in one hand, pouring water from a glass on her front yard flowers. That's not what made her deranged. She was called Crazy Bird Lady because her backyard was fenced in with very high, thick shadowbox fencing. You couldn't see in unless you climbed a tree. Inside the yard was a local wildlife bird sanctuary of her own making, with tons of feeders, nesting boxes, and bird-themed art and paraphernalia. She apparently sat in her rec room, looking out a big sliding glass window at her bird kingdom. But even that wasn't why she was called Crazy Bird Lady.

She was called Crazy Bird Lady because she was ill-tempered, ranting at passersby about how she hated cats. She did hate them with a passion. I don't think she was very religious, but she did say that cats were the devil's agents, and screamed at them, and chased them from her yards, screaming obscenities not becoming to an elderly woman in the 1970s.

We had neighborhood cats. We had Felix, Caesar, Mickey, Ling-ling (yes, a Siamese, how did you guess?), Anthony, and Cleopatra. And one three-legged cat nicknamed "Lucky." Most of these cats were fairly innocuous, except Lucky, and he rather stood out because of his hobble. All the cats roamed everywhere, except Lucky, who stuck to his yard when he got older. Lucky somehow managed to climb up a crabapple tree in the morning, and sat on the edge of a thick limb, at about human eye level. How he climbed the tree, I don't know. The rest of the cats were seen crossing the street, sleeping under cars on hot days, or maybe fighting once in a rare while. They never howled at night, nor did they knock over trash cans, fishing out a complete fish skeleton that they ate from a trashcan lid like the cartoons. They were just a background presence. I grew up with Daisy and Shasta, but they were indoor cats, and lived to be quite old.

The story goes that one day, Crazy Bird Lady suddenly burst into a meeting of the Southridge Women's Club, and before any of those women got over the shock of the woman coming (*gasp*) uninvited (!), Crazy Bird Lady started ranting that if she saw one more of the neighborhood cats in her yard, she was going to shoot them! Now, this story got to me after a long trip through the rumor mill, so I am not sure what really happened, so I skipped most of the details which may or may not have been true. But now people were talking about Crazy Bird Lady's threat, but none of them ever took their cats in. Maybe they couldn't bear the thought of a litter box, or just didn't know how to deal with spraying, I don't know. But the cats were out and about while the humans were safe indoors, gossiping about Crazy Bird Lady and her love of birds, privacy, ranting at passersby, her drugged-up son, and making people feel uncomfortable by barging into polite social gatherings uninvited.

One day, Anthony and Cleopatra turned up missing. The owner, well aware of Crazy Bird Lady's latest threat, came to her house and asked if she'd seen them. Then, according to the story, Crazy Bird Lady was very quiet, mumbled something about cats being where they shouldn't belong, and "How should I know where your stupid cats are??" When the owner left the driveway, on a hunch, she opened up Crazy Bird Lady's trash can lid, and Lo! There was Anthony, who had been shot in the head, it was said, by a BB gun.

Minutes later, the police arrived. I was young when this happened, but as I recall, animal control was called, as well as an ASPCA person. Heated argument ensued in which the Crazy Bird Lady was almost arrested. But she wasn't. This was also a few weeks after a very big incident with the police, her son, and a party he was having where a fight broke out and someone poured peach paint all over someone else's custom Chevy Van (with the Diamond bubble windows and interior shag carpeting).

This must have been the critical blow, because a week later, a moving van showed up, and over a weekend, the Crazy Bird Lady, her son, and all their possessions were gone.

A "for sale sign" was in the yard for a while, and then my mother's good friend-to-be Carolyn moved in. Poor Carolyn, she moved into the Crazy Bird Lady's house, and already got off to a bad start with the neighborhood. But that's another story.

My cats have always been, and always will be indoor only cats. On top of cars, ticks, fleas, dangerous machinery, and cruel kids ... there is no reason for my cats to be outside. They do fine inside, where they will live to a ripe old age.

Posted by Punkie @ 07:18 PM EST [Link]