Another Day On the Internet

Okay, peeps… this will probably be my last post, as I have discovered that I just don’t have time to do this anymore. Believe it or not, I actually have a life.

Before I actually get to today’s topic, I just want to point out that this issue reminds me a lot of the case in California where a man, stands in a public place and takes pictures of children and post them on the Internet. This man goes so far as to call himself a pedophile, but has no criminal record, and claims to do nothing illegal. There are entire websites dedicated to crucifying this man for his actions. Never mind that he had never been arrested or had any kind of record for pedophilia, or anything else for that matter. Sure, the guy’s creepy, but that doesn’t give anyone else the right to infringe on his rights because they think he’s creepy. This man violated no law - city, state or federal. Not only did he not violate any laws, the throngs of you trying to lynch him are making it worse for the rest of us. I have a Constitutional right to take photos in public places. I have a Constitutional right to do whatever I want with those photos whether you like it or not. The throngs of you trying to legislate the actions of one man are ruining the right of Free Speech for the rest of us.

From CNN, “There is no law against someone making you feel uncomfortable,” said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and a Loyola Law School professor.

A similar swarm is now active on Flickr. It seems that a number of people have posted pictures of their children PUBLICLY on Flickr without limiting access to them to friends and family only. Yes, that’s right, they put their kids pictures out in public, and then expected that everyone would play nice and not take their pictures and use them elsewhere. Hmm… now there’s a problem. I wonder how many children have been assaulted or kidnapped based on photos posted by themselves or their parents on the Internet.

Before anyone gets their hackles all up about whether it’s a public forum or not, ANY site, such as Flickr, Photobucket, Blogspot, WordPress, etc., is a corporate entity provided to the public, sometimes for a fee. Users of those sites merely “rent space” from the provider. You don’t own the space, you don’t own the blog or the photo site. You may own the content, but you do not own the container.

Oh, you own the copyright, you say? Yes, that’s nice. But you put your kids’ pictures on the In-ter-net. By default that means that anybody who can see them can copy them and do whatever they want with them. In some cases you are powerless to do much about it even if you do happen to find them. In this particular instance, children’s pictures are being plucked from Flickr to be posted on Orkut. They’re being modified before they are being posted. In some places, that means that that piece of work no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the new “artist.”

Oh, you think Yahoo/Flickr should do something? Ahh, but the fine print in the agreement where you so quickly clicked ‘Yes, I agree’ said that even though Flickr gives you the tools, they can’t guarantee (a) that you will use them; or (b) that even if you marked your photos private that they will stay that way 100% of the time. Why? Because this is the In-ter-net, and Yahoo/Flickr has tons and tons of lines and servers all over the world and those pesky little bits of data that turn up being your picture travel halfway around the world before they get where they’re supposed to go and sometimes get stuck someplace you didn’t want them to be; or (c) that if someone takes your photo and uses it on another site not run by Yahoo/Flickr, it’s not Flickr’s problem and you need to report the copyright violation to that site.

As I see it, there are 3 main problems here.

1. There is an unreasonable expectation of privacy even though none was offered.
2. Some people hold the mistaken belief that by posting a copyright notice on anything posted on the Internet will keep other people from using the posted material. Keeping them from getting the information in the first place will keep them from using it. Posting a couple of extra words saying, “this is mine, don’t take it” isn’t going to cut it.
3. The flood of computers and Internet access in this country has put technology into the hands of people who don’t know how to use it. I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. Most people have no idea just how many of those jokes about stupid computer users that have floated around the Internet and through e-mail boxes are true. Working in the computer industry, I can tell you that it’s plenty.

So, what to do…

First, use your common sense. Would you take a photo of your child and post it on a bulletin board at the mall with the expectation that no one would take or deface it in any way, or worse, come hunting your child to kidnap them? No? Then why is there an expectation that posting it on the Internet is any different? It’s not only different, it’s actually worse! Surprise, people!! The Internet is Global. That means that it goes beyond the boundaries of the United States. People operating outside the boundaries of the U.S. are not governed by our laws. What does this mean to you? It means that they thumb their noses at you while they take that cute picture of your child and post it somewhere else. Nothing will ever happen to them. Oh, and another thing… those of you who put your kids school activity stickers on your car windows with your kids’ names on them are asking for trouble, too. Pedophiles aren’t stupid - all they’d have to do is read your child’s name off the window, wait until you’ve left the kid alone, approach the car and call the kid by name, telling them that you sent them to take little Johnny XYZ place and then disappear down the road. Not plausible you say? Really, how many kids do you think would not respond to someone who knew them by name?

Second, it means that you should fully read any terms of service (TOS) or other service agreements BEFORE you click ‘Yes’ to anything. Ever. If you don’t understand the legal mumbo-jumbo, find someone who does. You won’t regret understanding what you’re agreeing to.

Third, understand that by raising your online sticks and chanting threats on Flickr isn’t going to resolve the problem. Not posting photos of your children or other relatives on the Internet would certainly solve the problem. If you’re in a situation where your photo or other artwork is being used elsewhere without your permission, check the TOS for that site and/or look for their policy on intellectual property. Yahoo/Flickr, for example, has a distinct format for filing claims for improper use of intellectual property. However, as one writer in the Flickr responses noted, you can take down on company, server or site, and 10-20 more will pop up in their place. Just like spammers.

Damn, it would be nice if everyone would just play nice, but that doesn’t happen. In the midst of this issue on Flickr, there is no tolerance for any other point of view other than the crusading posse. Comments to those people who exhibit any kind of common sense are scoffed at, mailbombed or outright deleted. Not only are all of these responses rude, they threaten free speech everywhere. More importantly, it’s sad that people simply cannot tolerate the opinions of others where they disagree.

One more thing - I’m not going to bother moderating this post. Daniel, please behave yourself. I do not know you, I do not live anywhere near you and I don’t particularly care what you do unless you are bothering me. So just stop it already.

What Alcoholic Drink Am I??

You Are Beer!

You don’t need to get totally wasted when you hit the bars.More of a social drinker, you just like to have fun with your friends.And as long as the beer keeps flowing, you’re a happy camper. But don’t mix things up: “Beer Before Liquor, Never Been Sicker!”

What Alcoholic Drink Are You?

Thanks, Bunny!!

A Strange Kind of Fantasy

I’m in love. Or lust. Or something like it. Oh, yeah, this is big time pathetic. It’s not like I actually “met” someone and went on a date. Nope. Nor did I didn’t find a friend with benefits. That would be nice, but not my style anymore.

Give up? I think I’m falling in love with my new crackerpractor. No, he’s not cute. Not remotely. At least not to me. He’s probably in his early to mid-50s - tall-ish, fit, strong. But still… I don’t find him attractive. I have thought this through and all I can come up wtih is that he’s the only man who’s touched me at all in the last 2-1/2 years. Not sexually, not suggestively, just simply to crack my back. That’s it. No more, no less. Umm… yeah.

Obviously, I think this is weird. I mean, it’s not like I want to bed the man or spend time with him or anything. I don’t even want to see him every day. I just can’t stop thinking about those hands on my lower back.

Now THIS guy on the other hand… RAWR!!! Come to my bed, Baby!!
Too bad he’s in Canada.

Happy 16th Anniversary!

Today is my anniversary. No, silly, I do NOT still celebrate my wedding anniversary. That would be stupid. No, I celebrate my liberation - my divorce!! Happy Anniversary to me! I’d like to be able to say that it was 16 years of solitary bliss, but I spent 7 years being miserable with X2, so I suppose I could quantify it by saying it’s 4 years either side of my misery.

I do, however, celebrate someone else’s wedding on this day. It’s also my aunt and uncle’s wedding anniversary. All I do is send a card, but it’s the thought that counts, right? If it weren’t for the celebration of my divorce, I probably wouldn’t remember their wedding anniversary anyway. So Happy Anniversary to J&B!!

Sexual Amusement

Oh joy… another blog quiz. At least it’s worthy for a change. I hate those where the color of your lipstick says something about the size of your tits. Since when are THOSE related?

I am Kama Sutra - my exes could have told you that, but fortunately, they’re not talking. Online. At least, not that I know about.

Blonde Days

Okay… some days I’m blonder than others. Today was a truly blond day. On the way to work, I remembered I was supposed to be somewhere other than the office to attend an all-hands meeting. The rest of the work day was more or less okay. I didn’t think anything more of it.Tonight was the first game of our recreational league softball season. Softball should be interesting this year - I haven’t been able to throw since last year (my shoulder’s killing me) and I had surgery on both knees last fall and I’m still having the same problem I was having before I had the surgery done. On top of this, I’m a team captain this go round. Our previous captain moved to El Paso, leaving us leaderless. Not an overly big deal, right? Probably not - unless you’re blonde. I ran all over the building this afternoon looking for a clip board because I remembered at 6:00 that I needed to have people sign forms and keep track of who was on my roster so we could put a batting lineup together. I got to the game at almost exactly starting time. Then… I couldn’t find my glove or my bat. I managed to get my cleats on before I was up to bat. I remembered after my first at bat that I had batting gloves somewhere. I did manage to find those, but the location of my bat escaped me. Until I got home. And realized it was in the bat bag where I left it after the end of last season. Ugh!!

After I got home, I showered and cleaned up some e-mail. I don’t download mail to my desktop every day. I check webmail to do basic mailbox cleanup and maintenance and then once or twice a week I download the whole mess to my desktop. So now I’m getting ready for bed. It’s just after midnight and I go into the bathroom to finish my routine - brush teeth, take some Advil for what will likely be some very sore muscles in the morning and realize - with some horror - that I had sprayed Scrubbing Bubbles this morning into the glass I use in my bathroom. And now, I just diluted it with water and drank the Scrubbing Bubbles. Nice. Yes, it crossed my mind this morning to put the glass in the kitchen, but I didn’t do it. I left it on the bathroom counter.

Sooo… I went back to the computer and called the Poison Control hotline. FWIW - I couldn’t, for the life of me, find a number for local Poison Control. I did, however, find a number for the National Hotline, which is 1-800-222-1222. You need to put this number into the phone book of EVERY phone you own. I mean it. If I’d had it in my speed dial or even my Palm Pilot, it would have been a lot faster. Okay, so being blonde and feeling REALLY stupid, I called the number and told the nice lady of the totally STUPID thing I’d done. Fortunately for me, all I will get out of this adventure is a stomach ache. And a weird taste in my mouth.

Rave HD

I’ve been watching a lot of non-network programming on TV lately. I’ve decided I like the Rave HD station a lot. They have been running old Soundstage performances, along with live concerts from all over the world and some of the various music festivals worldwide.  I’ve discovered that seeing some of the bands I like on CD live would suck rocks. For example, I just watched an old concert of The Crash Test Dummies. They were live in Duluth, MN. While I really liked “The Ghosts that Haunt Me,” I didn’t care that much for the rest of their CDs. I heard them in a live performance of “Superman’s Song” from a local alternative station, and it was awesome. However, watching the performance from Duluth was awful. It was one of those deals where you could kind of tell the lead singer is a total ass in person.

I also learned that while I don’t necessarily like all of the Matchbox Twenty songs, I would love to see them in concert, and I wouldn’t throw Rob Thomas out of my bed for eating cookies, either. The performance from Denver was really great. I suppose there’s something about bands that go acoustic on tour that strikes my heart. I would pay good money to have a live CD or DVD of Jonny Lang from his acoustic tour a couple of years ago. That boy is awesome in person!!

This all leads me to my latest revelation. If I were ever to have a lesbian affair, it would have to be with Jewel.  There are only a couple of songs from her CDs that I care for, but there’s something about her when she’s playing live that makes my heart skip beats. Maybe it’s that she’s so sultry looking sometimes, and I like to think I’m that way sometimes. I dunno. She just seems hawt!!

Anyway… so seeing as I blew my opportunity to get good Rush tickets, I’m hoping they show up on Rave HD one of these days, and if I see Jewel or Matchbox Twenty coming anywhere near me, I’m going!! In case you didn’t get the message - get Rave HD.

In Mourning

I’m in mourning for Minnesota, and I’m not entirely sure why. Disasters happen everywhere for any number of reasons. Maybe because there wasn’t a lot of squawking ahead of time about how the state government failed the people of Minnesota by neglecting their infrastructure. We all know that this happens and that there’s bloody little we can do about it. We also collectively understand that the purpose of a politician is to line his pockets with our tax dollars rather than do anything useful with it. In the words of In the words of Jeffrey Pelt (Richard Jordan) in my most favoritest movie EVER, The Hunt for Red October, “Listen, I’m a politician which means I’m a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not kissing babies I’m stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.”

While I felt badly about what happened in New Orleans, I had a hard time finding it in my heart to mourn what happened there. Everyone knew that the city was a bowl waiting to be filled and that the levies were unstable. Common sense dictated that if the city started filling with water, that the multi-million dollar pumps would not work submerged. For New Orleans, it was only a matter of time. The Greater Houston area did not have plans in place for evacuation of the city in the event of a Category 5 hurricane, such as Katrina. As could have been predicted following Katrina, chaos ensued during evacuation. Contraflow lanes are not opened until evacuees are at least 30-40 miles outside city limits. The roughly 58,000 people living in Galveston and over 200,000 people living in the waterfront communities were supposed to evacuate at certain times. With the widespread fear and panic, people left when they were good and ready, not when the government wanted them to leave. The plans and procedures developed from the “Lessons Learned” following Rita do not look much better than they did pre-Rita. This isn’t rocket science, and the citizens of the Texas Gulf Coast are being glad-handed about the new and improved evacuation plans the same way as Minnesotans were about the stability of their bridges. As it turns out, the entire country is being glad-handed regarding the safety of our roads, bridges and other government-managed infrastructure.

Sure, I’ve been to Minneapolis and know people there. It’s frustrating going to the Red Cross site and finding that there’s no good way to see if anyone I might know was at all involved in the disaster. The other thing bothering me about the stories coming out of Minneapolis, and not only related to the bridge disaster, is who they are coming from. A Somali woman is still listed as missing, while CNN’s Anderson Cooper ran a story about a paraplegic Mexican immigrant who barely spoke English. Where are the native Minnesotans? Minnesota has long been known as a “welfare state.” The street people stay because they are well taken care of by the formerly liberal government. That and Garrison Keillor’s Lutherans are entirely to caring about the affairs of people in other places in the world.

In the early 70s, throngs of Laotians, Cambodians and Vietnamese were brought to the Twin Cities for resettlement following the end of the Vietnam War. While Wikipedia counts the 90s as the time of immigration for Latinos, Mexicans and others of Latin heritage were streaming into the Twin Cities since the late 60s and early 70s. The 90s are better known for the latest push of immigrants coming from Somalia. According to Wikipedia, “the metropolitan area is an immigrant gateway with a 127% increase in foreign-born residents between 1990 and 2000.” I know this sounds prejudiced and bigoted. In a way it is… but only in the vein that recent immigrants to the Twin Cities, and many other metropolitan areas across the country, come to America for its freedoms and then expect Americans to bend to their ways rather than assimilate themselves to their new country.

When the Asians came to this country in the 70s, they learned English, they got jobs or opened businesses and assimilated in order not to stand out in their new homeland. More recent immigrants refuse to assimilate. From Associated Press reports: Muslim students protest to receive a foot-washing station at the Minneapolis Community College or Muslim taxi drivers refusal to transport air travelers who may be carrying alcohol in their bags. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune on February 27, 2007, “Roughly three-quarters of the 900 taxi drivers at the airport are Somali, many of them Muslims.” The minority is now ruling the majority. Everyone is too afraid of being called insensitive to stand up for their own rights, as afforded by The Constitution. This country was based on self-evident truths - all men are created equal and as such, are afforded certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. After all, if any American emigrated to Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, they’d be expected to follow the local customs of those countries or be imprisoned. As such, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that my national language be English and not Spanish, Japanese, Chinese or Arabic. In addition, I shouldn’t have to be asked to press 1 or 2 or 4 to hear a message in English and not Espanol. Being Christian, Jew, Muslim or Buddhist is the right of any citizen in this country. It’s not your right to force the rest of the world to change because your beliefs are different than mine.

Nuttier Than a Bedbug

cartoon from nataliedee.com

I haven’t written about my delightful neighbors in a while. The ones that drive me most nuts are the two nutcases who live on the bottom floor. The male half drives one of those half-sized Chevy pickups and she drives a Crown Vic. He generally has nothing better to do than spit-shine her car. Sometime back in May, I came home from work exhausted and they were both outside trying to put a bookcase of sorts into his little truck. I had just gotten my car washed and after trodding upstairs, I learned that it was going to rain over the weekend, so I figured I’d better go get groceries before the rain came. It took me at least an hour or two to get myself pried off of the couch to go out again. When I went downstairs, they were still fussing with this bookcase. As I walked by, Nutcase spit at me. I turned around and looked at him all the while thinking, “You’d better not have just spit at me because tonight, I’m not in the mood for this shit and I’ll knock you on your ass.” I won the staredown, got in my car, backed out and left. By the time I got back, they were done and nowhere to be found. When I came downstairs for work on Monday morning, he was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps and apologized for his behavior, because as he sat in church he realized what he did was wrong. This is how the cycle goes. Be a nasty little bastard and then apologize. As a result of this, I never know what he’s going to do next, I make sure that my garage door is closed before I pull away.

On 7/7/07 he and the wife had apparently gone out to dinner with some other friends. I’ve seen these people here a couple of times and pay them little attention. They’re not nearly as obnoxious as Nutcase’s son. We’d had a huge downpour along with the funnel that formed up the street, so it was wet and drippy outside by late afternoon. I heard a huge commotion downstairs and went out on my patio to see what was going on. Have I mentioned that they used to call me the Hall Monitor in college? Anyway, he was apparently pissed off about something and she was having trouble getting out of the car. I don’t know what all transpired down there, but I heard glass breaking in the garage and the visitors eventually got both of them into their apartment and left. All was quiet the rest of the weekend.

Last week I was talking to Middle Guy about some other things and he asked if I’d heard Nutcase downstairs about a week earlier. According to Middle Guy, Nutcase was drunk off his ass and was wandering around outside ranting in his boxer shorts. If there’s one thing I do not want to see, it’s a 78-year old guy hanging out of his boxer shorts. Even more fun is that this guy wanders around at all times of the day dressed like this. The other night I got home at 8:30 and he was slinking off around the other side of the building in his jammies.

Today was umm, interesting. I haven’t been feeling myself lately. I’ve been sleeping a lot more than normal - something like 12-18 hours at a time. It’s not that I’m depressed… I actually want to get out of bed, but I can’t drag my body up and out of the fog. In fact, I almost feel like I’ve got mono again. However… I stayed home all day yesterday and slept almost all of it. I didn’t leave the apartment from Saturday night when I got home from my friend’s birthday party at about midnight until Tuesday around 12:30 or 1:00. So as I’m pulling out of my garage, I notice Nutcase standing next to the steps. He’s got a name tag on like he’s working at WalMart as a greeter, but it looks the wrong color. He waved. I waved back. Then he watched me drive down the driveway as if he was never going to see me again. It was weird.

Check Your Cable Connection - There’s Something Wrong with This Picture

WTF is up with the Food Network and the commercials these people are running? Habitat for Humanity, Anti-Doping League and the clearly European looking “Let’s Not Cheat?” commercials?? I wish I had the capability to record and post these commercials so you could see what I’m talking about - they’re not on YouTube.

It’s very weird considering the lengths the Food Channel will go to ensuring that they are not endorsing products when the entire existence of this channel is about food and eating. Even Public Television shows commercial endorsement by food-related sponsors during the hours they broadcast their cooking programs. Why are cable channels any different?

As a Habitat for Humanity volunteer, I can appreciate the boost for Habitat volunteers, but don’t understand the context - I think it would be wonderful if Giada de Laurentiis, Emeril Legasse, Paula Deen and Ina Garten started doing some well-publicized community service by showing up at some Habitat homes and giving some of those families free groceries for a year, free cookbooks and all new bakeware, utensils and small appliances (ice cream makers, waffle irons, panini grills, etc.), or even go to the schools in those areas and teach the kids how to cook for a week, but that’s not what the commercials are about.

Just looking at the commercials themselves, they really don’t make much sense. I really don’t get the commercial about cheating. While playing an almost flamenco, but clearly Latin guitar riff, the commercial shows an attractive female math teacher - she looks like a very pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones - in a classroom filled with wonderful afternoon/evening light, ceiling fans and all dark skinned, brown-eyed and brown-haired kids - hmm… where the hell is this school anyway? Spain? Italy? But the label on the black board is in English, and the kids write notes to each other in English… so the message is what? Hey, all you Spanish or Italian kids, you’re not going to speak your native language in the classroom, and you shouldn’t cheat on your math test?? Or, if you don’t cheat in school you can grow up to be a multi-million dollar TV personality? Uh… looking at today’s celebrities, that’s clearly not the case. Again, what does this have to do with food?

For our comic relief, they’ve thrown in a commercial from checkyearly.com. It’s supposed to get parents to take their kids in to get their eyes checked every year. The situations they put this kid in are ridiculous, but you have to watch this commercial and wonder what is really wrong with him, because after seeing a couple of these, there’s clearly something more wrong with him than his not being able to see.

The real problem is that NONE of these commercials are on any of the network channels or even the other cable channels where they would better fit. I suppose that being sponsored by Cable in the Classroom gives the networks an excuse not to, but THE channel that SHOULD carry at least the anti-doping and anti-cheating commercials is ESPN, and they DON’T!

From the Food Network page on Cable in the Classroom, Scripps Networks provides commercial-free, educational programming and free educational guides for their “classroom offerings.” When I look at the page listing the educational offerings, they’re all programs that are not commercial-free: Good Eats, Unwrapped and Food Find.

What is wrong with this picture?

What is WRONG With People Anyway?

I got home late from work one night last week - nothing new there - and caught one of those quickie contest “commercials” from the local Fox TV station where they were giving away tickets to the Astros. I followed the directions and sent my entry in. Less than a week later I was notified that I’d won 4 tickets to the game this Saturday. Yay!!

So I set about finding 3 other people to go to the game with this weekend. One co-worker, after checking her schedule, confirmed she’d attend. Another needed to check with her significant other. Seeing as he’s had some health issues recently, I also asked two other friends outside of work if they would like to go in the event that Jimmy couldn’t go. Knowing that I would likely ask them to go at the last minute, both eagerly said they would go.

You can imagine where things sit right now. I have 4 tickets to tomorrow afternoon’s game and no one to go with. Co-worker 1 said they couldn’t stay the whole game and if I had someone who could, they’d bow out. Okay, no problem. I then approached Co-worker 2 about inviting their SO’s friend along. Co-worker 2 slapped themselves in the head and admitted that they’d forgotten to mention it to the SO in the first place and they were going out of town. > I then called the backup friends, neither of which could go due to family commitments.

Seeing as I actually LIKE baseball, it’s too bad I couldn’t have gotten the TV people to send me single tickets to 4 different games.

Hotter Potter - Part III

First things first - no spoilers here.

As I said before, I don’t stand in line at midnight with a bunch of kids to buy a book. In fact, there aren’t many things that I’d be willing to stand in a long line to own. So like many others, I pre-ordered the book for myself and my nephew. Amazon pulled a quick one this year - when I checked the website, there were UPS tracking numbers for each delivery. Mine said it had arrived in Houston and was in-route to be delivered at 11:03 am Saturday. For the better part of the afternoon, I waited for the nice, handsome UPS guy to show up at my door with my book. When I spoke to my sister, she told me my nephew’s copy had appeared in her mailbox that morning. Hmm… at 3:30 I went to check the mailbox, and lo and behold, there it was. Amazon had shipped a bazillion books to the Post Office who then delivered to the recipients. Sneaky.

I started reading on Saturday evening and finished late last night. I keep hearing about how “dark” the story has become and it’s starting to annoy me. Well… DUH! Harry’s a teenager. If you don’t have, or never have had a teenager in your house, borrow one for a while and see what rays of sunshine and light they are each day. Besides, how many 7-year olds do you know that are reading the Deathly Hallows?  On the other hand, I see parents taking their 7-year olds into WalMart at 11pm when they should be in bed, so I suppose anything is possible. Anyway… the thought occurred to me yesterday that the Potter stories really aren’t any darker than the plot lines of any other movies kids are going to these days. Take a look…

Spiderman - Peter gets bitten by a spider, his body undergoes a bunch of weird changes resulting in strange superhuman powers, his uncle is murdered in front of him, the kids at school make fun of him because he’s a geek. In the 3rd movie, Peter’s new suit takes on a life of its own and it’s not exactly nice. Throughout the comic series, and the three movies already made, there is a lot of action, death and destruction. This is that much different from Harry Potter how?  Oh, I forgot… there aren’t enough magical beings, although Sandman and Venom aren’t exactly human, are they?

Batman - Bruce Wayne is a young boy who watches his parents violently murdered in a dark alley by an armed gunman. As we would expect, this event affects him very deeply and he chooses to avenge the death of those closest to him. Young Bruce doesn’t do this by observing crime and calling the police. That’s what I’d want my kid to do, but he doesn’t.  He chooses to don a bat suit and capitalize on his own fear of bats and uses their symbolism of the night, ghosts, vampires, disease and death to invoke this fear in others. Heaven forbid he strike out to emphasize the goodness of his parents by emulating cute furry creatures.

Star Wars - throughout all six Episodes of the Star Wars epic, there is much violence, death, destruction, fear and an over-abundance of ill-willed, scary non-human beings. We have familiar struggles between good and evil. Most Jedi knights are good, but a few go bad, as we watched Anakin Skywalker transform from a Jedi Knight with twins on the way and his life ahead of him, to the Sith Lord, Darth Vader estranged from those he loved. The Jedi are able to use their magical powers to do what needs to be done. These six stories are all filled with action, sexual overtones and violence. People die, lose limbs, and get blown out of the sky like they’re going out of style.

Lord of the Rings - Another mythologic epic where men and magic meet to destroy the black enemy. Throughout the story, the reader is rarely without a violent struggle, usually involving fantastic, magical creatures. There are wizards, giants, talking and walking trees, elves, trolls, dwarves, and many, many more. Frodo is tortured numerous times and his mind is poisoned by the evil magical ring. We see how absolute power corrupts absolutely in Sauron’s quest for the ring that rules them all. None of the stories are without adventure and violence.

For some reason most of us don’t have a problem taking our kids to see these movies or others like them. But the world has gone soft in the head about Harry Potter and its “dark” themes. People! None of this is new!! Believe me, your kids have seen this before. The themes weren’t new when J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings. They weren’t new when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet or Macbeth. Hell, they weren’t new during the time of Plato and Socrates. Yes, there is violence. Your kids are used to that by now - take a hard look at real life and the other movies they’re seeing. At least all there isn’t a lot of overt sex or sexual undertone - the worst these kids do is kiss. I wish I could say that about some of the other teenagers I know.

Distracted Parenting

As reported by the Associated Press this week, a Nevada couple were charged with child neglect because they were too busy playing video games to feed or otherwise take care of them. These children were 11 and 22 months. The parents are 23 and 25. The mother has a job and the father is unemployed and blew his inheritance on computers and a big-screen TV. That’s intelligent.

Even more intelligent was the comment made by Patrick Killen, spokesman for Nevada Child Abuse Prevention.  “As we become more technologically advanced, there’s more distractions,” Killen said. “It’s easy for someone to get addicted to something and neglect their children. Whether it’s video games or meth, it’s a serious issue, and (we) need to become more aware of it.”

They were distracted? Really? That’s what that’s called? There’s way more than “video game addiction” going on here. Try stupid, immature and unfit to be parents. Want something a little more politically correct?  How about mentally challenged? I have to wonder why these people were allowed to have sex and breed in the first place? Part of their 12-year maximum sentence needs to include mandatory sterilization so they can’t have any more children.

Hotter Potter, Part II

I went to my physical therapy appointment yesterday at 5:00 pm. We changed up the routine a little yesterday, as the 5 whole minutes on the elliptical machine on Monday made my leg hurt again. This meant that we did a couple of exercises and stretches and then they started working on soft tissue. Definition? They did very, very deep massage from my ankle to my hip. There were two of them, tag teaming to kick my ass. And kick my ass, they did.

We finished a little early at 6:30. I was having a problem with my Motorola H500 bluetooth earpiece, so I was going to head over to the Verizon store. While getting ready to leave the driveway, the thought crossed my mind that I should probably check out the theater and maybe go see Harry Potter. So, I called the theater number, got a real person when I expected a recording, and asked her whether it looked like the showing would be full. The way she said no told me that I needed to scoot my ass over there and go see the movie, so that’s what I did.

I arrived right about 7:00, got my ticket, my full 2-course meal of popcorn and Mr. Pipp and made it into the theater during the first preview. There are some interesting movies on the horizon, but I’m not here to talk about those.

I think the movie was well done. It covered the major pieces of the 5th book - all 870 pages of it. Yes, there are some over-zealous Potter fans out there who insist on reading all of the books over again to make sure that they have all of the intricacies of the books at the forefront of their minds. Those are the people unhappy with the movie. Fortunately, the number of those people is relatively small in comparison with the numbers of people who will see the movie or read the last book. Clearly, I didn’t read the book over and just went to the movie. I have forgotten a number of things from the book, but that’s okay. The movie reminded me of what the major parts of the story were. The only thing that disappointed me was that I watched most of the TV interviews - Leno, Letterman, Conan, Today, Regis and Kelly… and a special on A&E. TiVo is great, isn’t it? By the time I was done with those, I’d seen almost every “big” scene in the movie. It was like seeing Kathy Bates and Jack Nicholson naked in About Schmidt - there wasn’t anything left for my imagination.

Speaking of not having anything left to the imagination, I’d actually like to see Daniel Radcliffe in Equus. Not that I really need to see an 18 year old kid naked, but I’m interested in his acting range. No, really. God, you guys have such dirty minds.

Dear Flight Attendants

There was an article on CNN today (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/18/mom.airplane.charges.ap/index.html) where a woman on a Frontier Airlines flight from San Francisco to Denver allegedly beat her 2 and 4 year old children on the plane and then intimidated the flight attendant who interfered with the children. When the woman threw her drink on the floor at the flight attendant’s feet and then pointed her finger at the flight attendant, the flight attendant claimed she felt threatened.

Dear Flight Attendant:

Do you have children? Have you ever had to deal with a 2 and 4 year old together for any length of time? Did you ever take said children on a 2-hour flight after going through probably 2 hours of getting through the airport between baggage check-in and security? If you have, I’ll bet you were always the perfect model parent, weren’t you? Mm-hmm…

Ms. Flight Attendant, aside from the fact that you interfered with a mother bear and her cubs, I’m very bothered by the fact that you were intimidated by a woman whose outward expression of her frustration was to throw her drink on the floor at your feet and pointed her finger at you. Intimidated enough to have her arrested by the FBI upon landing. This being the case, you have no business being in a position where you must deal with the public. You would be much better suited sitting behind a desk pushing paper because clearly, you have the people skills of a gnat.

I regret to inform you that your services will no longer be required by this passenger and probably many others. If you’re that bothered by people, go home and stay there. Do not leave your house. Ever. Thank you.

Can you tell that I’ve been more than annoyed with the behavior of flight attendants for a while? They weren’t this obnoxious before September 11th. I got to the point where I didn’t want to fly because if you asked for a blanket and a pillow, you were clearly a terrorist of some kind. It’s more than ridiculous that these paranoid people continue to fly with the public. There needs to be some kind of psycho-flight attendant screening program. If the government and the airlines need to scan my DNA to let me on a plane… I’m just sayin’

Hotter Potter - Part I

X2’s daughter, The Princess, got me hooked on Harry Potter. This wasn’t a bad thing, really, as the books are well written and are a mostly enjoyable read. I say mostly, as the plots are turning darker and there’s a lot of evil in Harry’s world, and I normally read to forget the real world and it’s problems with the Evil Empire in the White House and all, but I digress…

The new book is due out in 5 days. It will be delivered to my door because I think as a single adult with no children, it’s ridiculous to stand around a bookstore at midnight to be at a party aimed at 12-year old kids. Either way, I get my book on release day, which is better than I can say about other favorite authors of mine.

Anyhoo… the movie opened last week. Refer to the previous paragraph to note why I would not be in line at a movie theater at midnight on opening night, either. Add to that that I can’t stand being in a theater full to the brim of teenagers and young kids. To be honest, I hate theaters that are filled to the brim, period. So I figured the optimal time to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix would be the first show on Sunday morning - 10:30 am to be exact. How absolutely silly of me… assuming all of the God-fearing book banning zealots would be at church on Sunday morning instead of going to see the latest Harry Potter movie, which they decry as unChristian and unsuitable for consumption. The show was SOLD OUT at 10:00 am.

I turned on my heels and left. I went to my next favorite place of sloth and avarice, IHOP. The pancakes were delicious.

Brutally Honest - Well, it sorta fits…

Thanks to Bunny from Down the Rabbit Hole!

Commander - ESTP

53% Extraversion, 33% Intuition, 73% Thinking, 46% Judging

It’s all about action with you, isn’t it? You’re outgoing and right to the point. Fast moving, fast talking and often fast spending. Your motto is “Just DO it.”

Wow. You move faster than the Flash on a treadmill. (Yes. I could have thought up something cleverer than that. But honestly, you’re just not worth my time.)

To carry on the superhero theme, you’re comparable to the Hulk. Except you’re uglier. And you’re slightly more intimidating. People flinch when you’re around for fear you might exert your dominance and order them to do 50 press-ups.

Perhaps if you calmed down a little, people wouldn’t be so scared of you. Of course, something would have to be done about your face. Is plastic surgery an option?

This insatiable appetite for action means that you’re not exactly into long term commitments. You get bored incredibly quickly and tend to jump in and out of relationships like the Energizer Bunny.

Eventually you’re going to run out of people to bounce to, and you will end up a very lonely and hated individual.

*****************

The other personality types are as follows…

Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging
Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving
Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging
Almost Perfect - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
Freak - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
Loser - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging
Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging
Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging
Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test written by UltimateMaster on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

RMT

If you’re ever down Houston way, make a point to go to a performance of Radio Music Theatre (RMT). They’re a comedy trio, two-thirds of which are from Minnesota. Prince Charming took me to see them the first time and I had tears running down my face nearly the whole performance. Essentially, they make fun of Texas white trash without being crude. Their humor is a little different, but I get it and enjoy it. Most of their skits are built around the Fertle family who live in Dumpster, Texas. Each of them plays a number of different characters and there’s musical comedy to boot!! As they say on their website, “You can’t describe it. You just have to see it.”

I found a flyer at the office last week noting that they were offering free tickets to performances if you were affiliated with NASA. I called and got a ticket to the Saturday night late show on June 24th. Already knowing that seating is first-come, first-served, I made sure that I got there a little early. It wasn’t as crowded as I expected. That said, when I saw the flyer I was surprised they were still in town, as when Prince Charming and I went in November/December 2004, they said they were going to go through all of their shows in order and then retire. I figured they were long gone by now.

I really enjoyed the show - I was laughing through the brunt of the performance. The only drawback to the show was the temperature in the theater. Perhaps if I were indulging in the alcoholic version of the beverages served I’d have been better off. Regardless, if you don’t mind poking a little fun at Texas and the South in general, then RMT is a show you need to see. If you’re going to an 8:00 show, you need to know that they don’t serve dinner - just drinks and some dessert or very basic appetizers. It’s well worth the trip and the cost of admission, which is $20 per person. Don’t sit there - just go already!!

Viruses

Today’s discussion is about responsibility. And viruses. And spyware. And malware. Sorry to disappoint… I’m not talking about physical viruses that make YOU sick, although when I’m done telling you about it, maybe you *should* be.

I’ve spent the last 4-1/2 days working on a friend’s computer. I actually have no way of counting just how many infections this computer had in spite of the fact that the tools I was using would count the infections; however, there are some viruses and spyware that are so prolific that they get counted multiple times. I did finally get rid of them all, but the machine will never be the same.

I picked the machine up on Tuesday evening. I started working on it on Wednesday afternoon. It rained more or less all day, so it wasn’t like I was missing any fun 4th of July picnics or anything. I first found that there was a program once installed but not fully uninstalled and the error message that it was looking for some file came up when the machine was booted, there were several music sharing programs installed (read Limewire, Kazaa and other Peer-to-Peer sites) and NO anti-virus software working for at least a year. >

History: Not long after I moved to Houston I was able to make a career change into IT. While working on the help desk at one of the Enron companies, the first viruses starting appearing out “in the wild,” and I learned to take them apart at their roots. Since then viruses have gotten a lot more complicated, but learning the building blocks 10 years ago, I still understand how they work. We stopped pulling them out from their roots because there simply got to be too many of them.

DO NOT let your children have full run of the computer. Ever. I mean it.

I don’t care how much you don’t know about your home computer. Just because Jimmy or Sally are part of the Internet generation does NOT mean they know shit about computers. Hell, I lived with a Ph.D. Electrical Engineer for over 7 years who didn’t get the software in his computer. Fortunately for you, I do. Believe me, your children do not. Even if they’re teenagers. Actually, especially if they’re teenagers. If this means that you have to stand over their shoulders while they are doing anything on a PC you own, do it. If they bitch, too bad. Best Buy’s Geek Squad charges a minimum of $300 to undo what your children did for you while you weren’t paying attention. Below are some additional tips to help keep you out of trouble and keep your money in your pocket so you can do things you want to do rather than have to do.

• I don’t care how cool it is to share music across the Internet. Don’t. Not only is it illegal, but it’s dangerous for your PC. The mutants who create these viruses embed them into music and video files and into the programs you install to share these files. If you want to buy an album or single online, join a service like Yahoo Music or get an iPod and buy from iTunes.
• Buy a backup drive for your system and use it. Regularly. This way, if your children or someone else in your household manages to get the machine infected with a virus or other spyware/malware, you might be able to restore your system without having to give someone else a bunch of money to fix it.
• Invest in at least one anti-virus software program. I used to like Norton tools. I haven’t really used them in a number of years, but they are still sufficient. At work we use McAfee, which can be annoying at times, but it’s effective enough. At Enron we used both. My dad discovered Kaspersky recently, and it is what I installed on the PC I just fixed. Run a full scan of your machine at least monthly, if not weekly. If you’re in a pinch, there are a couple of online tools, but I wouldn’t rely on them solely for my virus protection. Anti-virus programs installed on your machine usually catch things as they are happening, which is better than trying to do something after the infection has taken place. For example, I was at another friend’s house the other night to play some network games. T gave me a disk to install. McAfee caught a piece of adware that was trying to install on my machine, and I was able to stop it before it started procreating on my laptop.
• Keep your temp and temp internet file directories cleaned out. This achieves two ends: first, it helps your machine run more efficiently and second, many of these mutant creations like to live in these files.
• When you want to remove software from your machine, use the uninstaller that came with the program, or go to the Control Panel –> Add/Remove Programs and try to remove the program from there. DO NOT delete the folder from the Program Files directory. What happens when you do this, is that the program uninstaller will never work again and the program stays installed on your system. In some cases, the program gets loaded into memory when you boot up and you’ll never really be able to get rid of it.
  • On a side note: If you have a new machine and there are programs you don’t think you’ll use, you may not want to uninstall or otherwise delete them from the system. If you don’t know for sure that they’re not hooked to your Operating System somehow, or that they’re not part of the branding of your computer, you can delete just the shortcut from your start menu so you don’t have to look at it anymore. Don’t delete or uninstall anything else unless you are positively certain you know what it is, what it does and that you don’t want it. Doing otherwise may send you back to the Geek Squad or someone else who can help you reload the system to its original configuration.
• Defragment your hard drive from time-to-time. This doesn’t do anything for viruses or other malware, but it will also help your machine run more efficiently.

If your machine does happen to get infected, make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date and run a full scan of your system. Let it clean whatever it finds. Re-run the scan to make sure it’s gone. If it’s not, unplug the machine from the Internet and try restoring the system using the backup system I talked about above. If you’re still stuck, then it’s probably time to call someone. I’ll answer e-mails on the topic from the address db.pchelp@gmail.com.

Bring Out Your Dead!!

I had tickets to see the off-Broadway show, Spamalot, on Father’s Day. When it first went on Broadway with Tim Curry as King Arthur, I went out and bought the soundtrack. At the time, I didn’t really care for it and found it somewhat silly. Probably because I was expecting something completely different. So… after I saw the show on Father’s Day, everything came together and the Pythons had me again.

For those who know not of what Spamalot is… Spamalot is a Broadway show written by Eric Idle of the original Monty Python troupe that is loosely based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I spent most of my teens and early 20s watching that movie. My friends and I could quote whole scenes at one point. I still have some of it and throw it out at inopportune times like at meetings, including those that are attended by upper management. But I digress. So Spamalot includes some of the more memorable scenes from the movie, plus a few embellishments. I rather missed the scene where Sir Bedivere is asked to join the court at Camelot - “What do you do with witches?” - and the Bridge of Death scene from the end of the movie. Otherwise, it includes The Black Knight, The Knights Who Say Ne, the Anarcho-Syndicalist peasants, Prince Herbert in the tower, the monks, Bring Out Your Dead, a teeny-tiny bit of the young maidens of the Castle Anthrax, the Killer Bunny (my favorite part) and a few others.

Anyway… while I really enjoyed the off-Broadway production here at Serafim Hall in Houston, I would have given my left arm to see the show with the original Broadway cast. Tim Curry played King Arthur and David Hyde Pierce (of Frasier fame) played Sir Robin. The music was upbeat and mostly memorable, as the music from this type of performance often is.

If Spamalot comes to a city near you, or you’re in NYC or Las Vegas, I would strongly urge you go see it. While it will make more sense to you if you’ve seen the movie, you don’t need to have seen it to get the show and be entertained. I give this one a 5-star rating.

Fresh Meat

There are days I wish I could have the last two decades back to do over again. And then I think about all of the times I heard something like that when I was in my 20s or 30s and thought the people saying things like that needed to get a life.

Ahem.

Anyway… so we got our new crop of summer interns in a couple of weeks ago.  There’s a new girl. Very tall, slender and pretty. I don’t know why, but I just don’t expect these kids to start hooking up with people the minute they walk in the door, and every time I’m surprised that they do. So this crop is no different. The college guys come in and do the work and the girls get slobbered on by the rest of the guys that have been here a while.

Maybe a sign would help: If You Work Here, I Won’t Date You. 

HA! Another 4-40

Well, I’ve done it again. By the time I left work tonight, I had my 40 in already. Too bad I actually have to show up tomorrow. On the other hand, if I want to take a 3-hour lunch, I can and nobody can say shit about it. So there. At least I’m almost caught back up again.

Zzzzz…

My ridiculous schedule finally caught up to me today… I had family in town all of last week plus a few days of the week before. It wasn’t one of those trips where we just hung out at the beach. No, there were things to do, and not all of them from my itinerary. In addition to that, no one at my office could be bothered to do anything while I was out, so I spent all last week getting my world back into some semblance of order and completely switching gears on my software project. As a result, the past week or so has been something of a blur. The fact that it’s the weekend has had no bearing in my life so far. Except that after the Habitat event this morning, I crashed. I slept for about 4 hours this afternoon. Good thing, too… I had plans for tonight. I’ll tell you about the entertainment of my past two weekends soon. Until then, though… I’m going back to bed. G’night.

This is Insanity

For those of you wondering if I’ve dropped dead yet, sorry to disappoint you, but I’m still here. At the rate I’m going it won’t be long. I’ve been putting in anywhere from 60-80 hour work weeks. This past weekend I managed to also log over 12 volunteer hours and do some serious cleaning at home.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I keep expecting that the multitudes of hours I put in will drop down to something reasonable, like say, the 40 hours a week they actually pay me for. Clearly, this is an insane thought.

However, the problem is really the Tigger Factor. In this organization, I’m the only one who can really do what I do, so that means that when there’s a lot to do, I end up staying at work until it gets done or I drop, whichever comes first. Add to this that I have to work against unreasonable processes created by clueless managers. If I were any more like Tigger, I’d climb up a tree and not come down.

Here’s to hoping that things settle down soon…

Weird Commute

I had a training session on the other side of town this morning. Early. I HATE getting up, and since I got home after 10:00 and I was having problems with the A/C last night, I was up rather late and didn’t sleep all that soundly. At least I had hot water for my shower this morning. Yay.

While I get ready for work, I listen to my local NPR station for the news, weather and today, traffic. While I was in the middle of my morning routine, I heard about an accident on the interstate at 7:00. Great… I’m almost ready to leave the house, which means that if the accident’s not there, there’s still plenty of traffic backed up. Exactly what I found when I got on the road.

So I’m driving on the interstate into town, and I end up behind a car where I notice the driver’s head bobbing back and forth. At first, it seems like maybe they’re just stretching their neck or bobbing a little bit to the music. But, like the Energizer Bunny, it doesn’t stop, and it seems to follow a specific rhythmic pattern. After a bit, I notice that the driver leaves at least 4 car lengths between them and the car in front of them. Hmm… I don’t remember if the driver switches lanes first or I do. At some point I end up next to this car instead of behind it. There’s a woman behind the wheel and her head’s just going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… like a metronome. There’s something odd about her face, too, but I can’t put my finger on it.

So it finally dawns on me what she reminds me of - a female version of Joker from the first Batman movie. In a bobble head.