Archive for the ‘Rambling’ Category

So this morning I pull on to the I-4 on-ramp from Saxon in Orange City, and as I'm getting up to highway speeds I glance to my left just in time to see a sports car — a silver, Corvetty-looking thing — wedged tightly in the trees some 50 feet up the bank. I immediately think two things: I hope no one's hurt, and that would be a cool picture. And then I'm on the highway.

There follows a few miles of mental gymnastics. My two thoughts stay with me for several miles. Did anyone else see that? Have emergency crews been called? Nothing was moving, so either the person(s) involved is out or already gone and the car is still there. Should I go back and make sure? Should I go back and get a picture?

I pulled off at the next exit and went back.

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Somewhat to my surprise I got through Holidailies, wherein bloggers vow to blog at least once daily for the month of December. I don't think I contributed much to the universe, but it was a fun way to force myself to be more regular. When you get older, that sort of thing becomes important.

So. How to continue it?

One thing I would like to try doing in 2010 is taking more photos. I'm not going to commit to one  a day – frankly, most days I don't go near much of anything interesting (when Adam Levermore was here for the @nasatweetup it dawned on me, as I was driving him around Daytona, that I was going the way I always go to avoid traffic and hassle  and was consequently showing him only the most boring and industrial parts of one of the most famous tourist towns in the world. Sorry, Adam). But this is Florida, after all, and I should be able to find something to point at.

I'm also going to keep trying the daily posts, and we'll see how that goes. Be warned.

And happy new year!

Posted at my 24/7 blog at GO386.com:

'So Fox decreed that they should be paid more for their programming based on the innovative business model "We Want More Money For The Same Product Because We're Pretty Sure We Can Make You Do It."And Time-Warner (and locally, their Bright House partner or affiliate or henchman or whatever the relationship is) is resisting, based on their own tried and true business model, "We Ain't Paying You Jack."

Meanwhile, millions of affected customers are fearfully watching the two monsters battle, crushing buildings in their wake, with only one terrified thought: "Am I going to miss the Sugar Bowl because of these idiots?"

In a nutshell, Fox wants money for its previously free programming. Time-Warner (and locally their partner Bright House) doesn't want to pay. Both mega-companies have been flooding the local airwaves, TV and newspapers with ads claiming the people are on their side and demand that the other party to back down.

Personally, I'm not too bothered by the Fox/Time Warner smackdown and wouldn't be affected if Fox disappeared from my TV. I'm not a football fan, most of their programming actively bothers me, and I can watch the last episodes of Dollhouse on Fox.com, Hulu.com, or get 'em from iTunes a day later. Worst case scenario, I have to wait til summer and buy the DVD set. That's about it for me and Fox-owned shows these days, although I have plenty of friends who would miss Glee and Fringe. (Note that FOX News would not be affected, dammit)

But hey, guys? The people are not on your side. Honest. We distrust both of you more or less equally. We know that you are not providing us with entertainment out of the goodness of your hearts, and that you need to stay profitable to do what you do. However you work that out is fine by us, but we know already that no matter what happens, our rates will go up. We are not your friends or your grassroots army. Please stop trying to rally us as a way to bully the other guy. Just work it out, let us know what the hike will be and let's move on with our lives.

Be sure to read the rest of my column, which suggests ways to make do without Fox. It's surprisingly easy, something both companies might want to think about.

"Thank you for calling Brighthouse Networks' help line. How may I help you?"

"Hi, I've been having problems connecting to certain web pages for four days now, and–"

"Have you rebooted your computer?"

"Yes, first thing. Also cleared my cache, deleted my cookies, reset my router, and flushed my DNS. None of it helped, but–"

"Please try rebooting your computer for me."

"But I did that."

"Not while I was on the phone with you, though."

"How is that different?"

"If I hear you do it, I can check it off my little script here."

"Even though it will have no useful outcome and will just waste both our times?"

"But it will have a useful outcome."

"What?"

"I'll be able to check it off my little script here."

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I like obvious names, I do. Why should I have to figure out your name in order to understand your product/service/intentions?

Along those lines, I'd like to see more businesses understand how their customers are likely to call them, and name themselves accordingly.

Example: there are three small Chinese restaurants within a few blocks of my dayjob: Great China, China Star, and China Village Restaurant. I have no idea which is which, and frankly I don't care. I prefer the one on the corner of Mason and Nova, and I'll bet most of their customers call them just that. So why not plan for it?

I'd like to see a chain of Chinese restaurants called "The Chinese Place," with names specific to the location. "The Chinese Place on 3rd." "The Chinese Place by the Airport." "The Chinese Place Over by the Italian Place." With variations as needed: "The Thai Place Over on Beachside," "The Hungarian Place by the Police Station, Over on District." Someone could even get cute with it and call their restaurant "The Chinese Place You Like So Much."

People would love the advertising and T-shirts. It would make the restaurant more a part of the community by anchoring it solidly to its surroundings. And there'd be no more need to remember which one is the Jade Garden (that you love) and which one is the Jade Palace (that had that bad fish that one time).

Same principle as the naming conventions for episodes of "Friends," which made perfect sense to me (i.e. "The One About Ross' Colonoscopy). It just makes things easier.

And now I want Chinese food.

Tiger Woods, gazillionaire golf star, has finally admitted to being a total skank and has quit golf indefinitely until all the bad jokes go away and he can come back. And I still don't care.

I don't follow golf, I don't make money from his endorsements, I'm not friends with him or his wife, I don't look to him for inspiration for my personal life. Why should I possibly care what he does, what he doesn't do, who he screws or who he screws over? If it was his wife fooling around on him, I still would not care. There is absolutely no reason for me to be interested in this train wreck of a situation, and I'm not.

What bothers me is, why is everyone else?

OK, this isn't my usual sort of post and I'm not trying to be Billy Mays here, but I bought something and tried it and it worked, and that's rare for me when cars are involved. Generally anything more intricate than adjusting the stereo volume bewilders me.

But my brother-in-law, who worked tirelessly — and a wee bit obsessively — to turn my newly bought cheap used car into something worth several times what I paid for it mentioned something I might consider trying on my old and yellowed headlight covers. And since he's spent hours fixing, tightening, or replacing most of the innards of my car for me, I figured I should take some initiative and do something that was supposed to take about 10 minutes. Because that's the kind of self-sacrificing guy I am.

Of course, me being me it took me about 25 minutes, but I didn't actually set fire to anything so I consider it a win.

Crystal View's Headlight Restorer actually freaking works. For about $20 (average retail price around my area) you get some sandpaper, some polishing cloths, some packets of polish and some packets of sealer and in about 5-10 minutes per headlight you get non-yellow, clear headlights. To the right is my car, before and then about a half hour after.

That's it. Not selling it, don't get commissions, and you'll get nothing extra If You Call Now. But if you've heard of this (or similar) stuff and was wondering if it worked, just wanted to let you know it does. Easily.

Adam Levermore, my "Save Hiatus" partner and the creator of such excellent artwork as the "How to Spot a Cylon" poster, the Serenity travel posters, various Can't Stop the Serenity artwork, the Little Damn Heroes designs and many more, just had his hard drive freeze up. With, naturally, a lot of irreplaceable artwork and working files still on it.

From his increasingly frantic tweets:

It's a Maxtor drive, w/ both USB and FireWire inputs. It's making a sound like a ticking wristwatch (both in terms of rhythm and volume)

One possible issue: Power requirement is 12V / 3A, but the supply that's connected is 12V / 2.5A. Could this be a contributing factor?

The sound doesn't change at all, regardless of whether I'm using the USB or the FireWire, or if neither is plugged in.

Finally, it's not making any sort of winding-up, spinning or whooshing noises I usually associate with a working hard drive.

HALP?

He's tried most of the urban legend fixes — freezing, etc — but he could really use the help or extremely discounted services of an experienced data-retrieval techie. Any fans out there with suggestions? Contact him or me if you can help out. Thanks!

Today marks the 40th anniversary of man's landing on the moon. I've been reading and watching a lot of testimonials from people who remember where they were, and what they were thinking, and I've been trying to remember my own reactions. I know I watched it; my dad brought me into the Florida room (in the south, a small room off to the side where the family hung out and kids played, as opposed to the living room, which was for company) and we watched it happen.

I guess. I was 4, and I can't say for sure I remember it.I've seen the footage so many times now that I can't separate that from my real memories.

I do remember the Apollo missions, though. I kept track of them, every one, and acted them out with my plastic Apollo rocket toy with real detachable lunar module and tiny plastic astronauts. And I never missed feeling a launch.

Not watching; I was usually in school when they went up. But the teachers would bring us all out to the playground and wait for the signal. And there, 80 miles north of Cape Kennedy, we saw a star leave the earth with its smoke trailing behind, and then we felt it. A rolling, powerful BOOM from the south that shook windows, pushed against our skin, and ripped through the trembling ground under our feet to let us know that once again, man had shoved the earth hard enough to get away for awhile.

Shuttle launches, while impressive, simply aren't on the same scale. Saw one go up last week, in fact, as we were driving in Oveido and we spotted it through the car windows. We didn't even pull over.

Landing on the moon was a triumph of intelligence, Commie paranoia, and bullheadedness that may never be equaled. But I hope we go back. And I hope there are more booms, to inspire our kids.

This should not come as a shock to anyone, really. But author Bev Vincent — male author Bev Vincent — was just told by an editor that "she" couldn't write convincing male characters.

Two years ago Vincent was asked to write for an anthology. He did so, a very personal story closely drawn from his life, and his editor went over it with him and produced a finished draft they both liked. The contract was signed. Then, just weeks before the anthology was supposed to go to press, it was handed to another editor who sent it back with lots of criticism… of this female writer.

The editor says: “The story seems far too personal, introspective and emotional for a man . . . It is hard to imagine a fellow from a place like [the setting] uttering the following line.” The editor then provides three sentences from my story as examples. He or she continues, “And I can’t think of many guys from [setting] who call home every Sunday afternoon to talk to their family” [Emphasis his or hers]. Another brilliant insight: “Most men don’t think deeply about the dewy greenness of nature.” The ultimate conclusion: “She [sic] needs to write more convincing [sic] from a man’s perspective.”

Don't know why the work was passed to a second editor, although I'd suspect office politics. But I'll bet had it been submitted under "Hank 'Beefy' McMann" those crits would never have been made.

Go read his story, and how it ended, and try to act surprised. I can't.