TV Movie of the Week

And now Jack tells me that word is Paris Hilton will play Paige Laurie in the movie.

This would be hilarious if it weren't Real Life(tm). And if the state hadn't paid 35 million for this monstrosity that could have made all kinds of high schools. And if the University didn't piss away money that could be spent making things (like I don't know, oh, say education) better here. And if ... And if ... an anthem almost!

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I was going to go on and on about this building now that we've been here a few days. The card swipe at the door at waist level, the hand dryer at crotch height, etc. Until Brand pointed out to me that it's perfectly situation if you're restricted to a wheelchair.

Kind of took all the wind out of my sails.

Which doesn't really explain why the toilet paper fixture nearly pushes you off the toilet seat when you sit down in the normal stall. Or why the faucets are motion activated (those are always set wonky too, they never stay on long enough and you have to wave your hands behind your head to get it to activate again) and spray 3 ounces of water at mach 2 out (which of course splashes everywhere and never gets the soap off).

So I guess I won't complain about the building much. Besides my hands are shivering too much to type ... ;-P

Correction

Ah. I read the "article" in the Maneater and it seems that the University originally paid $25,000 for the sign. Between all three of them that's the salary for an upper level systems administrator. Or two help desk technicans. Or who knows how many other folks whose work the University really needs to get things done.

And it wasn't Laurie herself that made them take it down, "the family was unhappy" with it however. Which casts even more aspertions on the decision making prowess of the Athletic department ...

The Arena Formerly Known as "Paige"

The latest in this "saga" is funnier than the last chapter but a bit less ironic.

It seems when the arena was named a sign was made. "Paige Sports Arena". With the first two words on the top line and the last underneath. Well it seems that Paige Laurie wanted her name to be above all the other words and in larger letters. So they sold this sign to a guy in Kansas and had another made (wonderful use of the University's money, eh? Did I mention we're a land grant school and get funding from the state - taxpayer dollars?).

Leaving aside the issue of the later need for a new sign (when the arena was renamed), this fellow decided to sell the sign on ebay. Seems to make perfect sense to me, he owned it after all. However the University asked that he take it down. A spokesman from the Athletic Department said that the University still owned the letters. (that link is from the "Maneater", the student newspaper where journalism wannabes go when they can't get into the "finest program in the country")

Is this not a perfect representation of the intelligence of the Athletic program here? And University athletic programs in general? (for those who don't follow my sardonic sense of humor, that's irony I'm attempting there)

D'oh!

Ethan is on vacation this week (or at least today) and needed someone to cover his Op Center shift. Bleh, first thing on Monday morning. I hate mornings. But I told him I'd do it. So I drag myself to bed early last night and actually get out of bed when the alarm goes off at 0630. I managed to get here by 0736 and I found Tracey in the chair. D'oh. He'd told Ethan he'd take it. Almost a "Bah Humbug" kind of thing. Guess I should check to make sure someone else isn't covering the other shifts I think I'm covering.

"Monkey Wash, Donkey Rinse"

I was reading Joe's blog and he was listening to Warren a few days ago so I had to hear "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead" from his "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" anthology. Great song that makes me think of Deadlands.

And after a few others we get to this one. A Very Strange Song (tm). I said something like that at one of the brunches a few weeks ago and Jack said "Warren Zevon write a strange song? No, say it isn't so!".

Of course the last one on that playlist is "Keep Me In Your Heart" which never fails to tear me up.

So we kept the "Bragging Rights"

And when I say this I don't say it as a staff member of the University of Missouri, but rather as an alumni of the University of Illinois. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

MU wants so badly to have a good football or men's basketball team. I derive vast amusement at the lengths to which they will go to propegate the image that they're winning. Every year they have a game with UofI at some neutral location, usually St. Louis. And apparently for the last five or six years they've gotten their a$$es handed to them by the Illini. This year was close (6 points) but the Illini are ranked number one in college men's basketball so it was a foregone conclusion.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

"A body at rest will remain at rest ...

unless acted on by an outside force."

Newton's First Law of Motion. Many of us learned it years ago.

On the way home last night I was pondering about whether people were inherantly good or inherantly evil. Being evil (truly evil anyway), however, requires a great deal of intelligence and a lot of effort/energy. So people are probably not inherantly evil since I don't think that many of them are that smart (insert assorted political jokes about the current administration or about people's driving).

But their behavior often seems so callous. Driving out of the parking lot after getting my bagels this morning I saw some fellow who had cut me off park and then toss his cigarette on the ground as he got out of his car. So it doesn't seem like they're particularily good either (with notable exceptions).

So what does that leave? I thought about it while waiting in traffic and initially came up with "people are inherantly stupid". That seemed to fit better. But I started to wonder if people were really stupid or just lazy. So that spawned the corolary of Newton's First Law of Motion.

"People at rest will remain at rest. Period. Nothing in this world is getting them out of that armchair!"

No difference between fact and fiction

I finished reading Micheal Crichton's "Eaters of the Dead" last week. Good book (good movie too). He wrote it in the mid 70s (1976 was when it was first published) on a dare from a friend. His friend was of the opinion that the classics had become unreadable by most people. Crichton disagreed so his buddy challenged him to prove it. So Crichton wrote this book in order to demonstrate that "Beowulf" could be an entertaining story.

It's written as if it was a scholarly search for a manuscript written by one Ahmad ibn Fadlan who journeyed to Scandanavia in 922. The intro and assorted notes throughout the story give you the distinct impression of a historical but well written text. In 1992 (I presume after the movie was made) he added an afterword where he talked about the exercise and the aftermath. One of the most interesting things he said was about a disturbing trend (he found it so and I agree) from which some scholars seem to maintain that there is no difference between fact and fiction. Both depend greatly upon the reader's viewpoint and other factors which vary from person to person.

As an engineer I find this unsettling to say the least. Most of our work is based upon certain things which we *know* to be true in virtually all circumstances. Gravity, physics and the like. If I push this computer's monitor off the desk then I'm fairly certain that it will fall toward the center of the Earth and stop when it reaches the floor.

He found it disturbing because at one point he found himself in the library searching fruitlessly for references he'd used in the story. It had been so long since he wrote it and the line between truth and the fiction he created to establish the story's atmosphere was so fine that he forgot which references were factual and which he'd made up (one author he attributes to was named the Latin term for 'fanciful').

And while we assume (at least I do) that anything we see on TV is false if not patently absurb (especially on the Evening News), to see this basic assumption creep into academia can only be a Bad Thing(tm).

However the book (and the film) are great fun. Give it a try.

All moved

Well I got the last of my stuff moved yesterday after the occupant of my cube got their stuff moved.

Parking and Transportation was a lot easier than I'd feared it was going to be. However moving what I thought was those "last few things" proved to be annoying. Especially when I had a long flat Amazon.com box that snagged something as I was leaving and spilled all my cables and my plant onto the floor. Just when I was thinking that it hadn't been too hard. Karma, pure and simple!

We'll reserve judgement on the new place until they actually get us network connectivity. Phones I don't care about, no one calls me except my family and friends and they have the cell phone. There's no one on campus I want to hear from, just these pesky users ... ;-P

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Bush is supporting Rumsfeld, trying to tell us he's all gruff on the outside and caring on the inside. However this doesn't get us any closer to the equipment the troops on the ground need ...

And the manufacturer has told the press that they can produce more vehicles if the Army wants them. So the conclusion is that the Army hasn't told them to. Which smacks very much of high level Army officers trying to curry (political?) favor with the civilians. And these kind of officers should be dropped (without body armor) into Fallujah with a rifle and told to find Allah.

Packing done, moving when?

Okay most of the packing is finished. There still a little island of clutter around the keyboard and monitor and the center drawer is still packed but that one of those 'dump into a box' packs.

Next Monday the cube I'm moving in to will be available and then Tuesday the new President (otherwise known by me as the "All High Muckety Muck") will be walking through the department. My default response is "I hope he doesn't say anything to me cause then I may have to speak and that can only be bad". However that's not really fair. I won't say it's not his fault he's a *suit* but he hasn't done anything directly to me or my group so I should really give him a chance to be the Pointy Haired Boss before I detest him. However I'm still not happy about moving so that could be it.

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I suppose I should "Christmas" the house up some before Jon, Tricia and the kids get here next week. But I've got no motivation to do it. I do have all these cool Star Trek and Star Wars Hallmark ornaments to put up somewhere. Maybe I'll do that instead. Erik told me I should put the Halloween decorations back up ... ;-P

Oops

And one other thing I forgot on part 1 of the previous post.

It boggles the mind how bipolar Fox is. On the one hand they've had "The Simpsons" for years now. "Arrested Development" is great. "That 70s Show" is good (people who enjoy it more would call it great too). And there are bunches of great shows they canned which were awesome (demonstrating an incredible lack of vision) including "Firefly", "Futurama", ... I was going to list one that Erik and Mary loved but it's name escapes me.

On the other hand they've got to have had the worst of "reality" TV. Something about marrying off your father, your mother, a millionaire, fat people losing weight, fake millionaires and nearly endless piles of other drek.

The fact that such goodness and such badness can coexist in one place is irrefutable proof of the duality of the universe. Strange. Very strange.

"Who's Your Daddy?"

I don't refer to something spectacular that I've done, but rather to a new "reality" TV show that Fox announced last night. Apparently some young woman is going to search for her natural father. Eight men will portray him, one of whom is the real deal. If she picks the correct one she wins $100,000. If she picks the wrong one then he wins the cash. I would ask if Fox could sink any lower except that I believe if I did then the answer "Why, yes. Yes, they can!" would be demonstrated in the near future. So instead let me ask this, "What's next? A 'reality' show about dying cancer patients?"

I heard about this on the radio this morning. Mo Lewis from BXR was talking about it and mentioned that he was appalled by it, but would likely be riveted by every episode. To Mo I say "Say No Man! Don't give in to them, you can beat it!". The rise of this drek which passes for "entertainment" is due, I believe, to a) it's cost (cheap when compared to paying a crew and actors apparently) and b) the American public keeps watching it. Fortunately I have expanded basic cable now so I can see real entertainment instead.

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Speaking of which I saw the premiere of "The Legend of Earthsea" with Danny Glover, Isabella Rosalini, Kristin Kreunk and Shawn Ashmore (the later two I don't recognize). After the first part I was uneasy. It was a classic fantasy story but the flow of time seemed skewed, which interferred with my suspension of disbelief. There seemed to be several places where in one scene only days had passed and in the next scene the passage of time seemed out of whack with that.

This jumping around time-wise is a perfectly acceptable technique in a book since it seems pretty evident nearly immediately that events in this chapter are out of sync with the events in the previous chapter. It needs to be done well in order to work best. George R.R. Martin did it constantly in the "Ring of Ice and Fire" books. I want to say that China Mieville did it in the Bas-Lag books as well but that doesn't stand out so clearly in my mind so I could be mistaken.

But in a film that needs to be done carefully I think in order to contribute to the story or atmosphere. However after the 2nd part I was less uneasy and it was, overall, well done and enjoyable. I'll need to read La Guin's book in order to render a final opinion but I do think that the film portrayed what I knew of her work. I'd read "The Left Hand of Darkness" in college and her work was multilayered. Perfect for a college literature class since there were so many themes which could be interpreted in so many different ways. And the Earthsea film got at least some of this across. However I think that the editing may have chopped the wrong parts, although to be fair in some books it's very hard to pick out what can safely be cut without affecting the story. It could very well be from what little I know of her work that this was an impossible task due to the nuances of the story and it's length (no idea how long the book is).

Well I should get back to packing.

He'd be a terrific WHAT?

Yesterday I was reading about the assorted cabinate and administration positions that Bush is filling. I found it amusing and incredibly ironic that his nomination for Homeland Security had some "security" problems and withdrew himself. I don't recall which position I was reading about but the person mentioned was commented upon by several Democratic senators as a "terrific pick".

Well I may need to have my glasses looked at because I thought I saw an 'r' in that 2nd word. However the rest of that paragraph went on to tout the qualifications of this candidate and I was confused by the apparent contradiction. Then I finally realized it said "pick" and not ... ahem, some other word.

I do this all the time when we're playing games, pretend to hear a word they didn't say because the contrast is humorous. But this wasn't on purpose and no one else was in the cube with me. D'oh!

Rock on Dude!

In the same vien I heard last night that Tiger Woods won the Target Open and donated his entire winnings to charity (1.25 million dollars).

Way to go!

More money than sense

Or perhaps what I should say is "all money, no compassion". I heard an ad this morning on the radio for the Columbia Country Club. Dues for the holiday season are lowered to a thousand dollars a year. Whoa! Then I wondered what kind of good you could do with that thousand dollars. The big thing on my mind this time of year is hunger. So I went to the website of the Central Missouri Food Bank because last year around now Allen took some of us from work to help with a Food Drive they had in conjuction with several local radio statons. Allen and I and a few other folks got around $400 and two dozen boxes full of stuff in the six hours we worked the tent.

According to their info of the 677,400 people in the area they serve, 84,000 (12.4%) live at or below the national poverity level. A single adult with one child has to earn an hourly wage of $12.40 in order to be self-sufficient. That's what, four times the minimum wage? And they (the food bank) manage to meet 55% of the need in their area. I remember last year hearing something about a single ten dollar donation would feed one and a half people for a month. Those numbers may be wacky but still, a thousand dollars given to the food bank would go a long way I think.

Which is not to detract from the rich, country-club people who do donate money (or more importantly, time) to the food bank (or other worthwhile charities). To those people (I don't know many rich people so I don't know any) I say "well done and thanks". However I won't say anything to the others since if they don't care about the hungry then it's very likely little I say will break through their "Wall of Indulgent Self Importance".

Just the facts please

Well I may have been wrong.

I admited it, I wonder if the people who caused (or at least contributed to) my being wrong will do it. It seems that the media (according to http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/editors200412100958.asp which admittedly is only an editoral and only one source - which was my problem, I only looked at two sources for what I posted yesterday) may have blown out of proportion Secretary Rumsfeld's attitude/comments the other day during the town hall meeting with the troops in Kuwait. According to this he committed several armored humvees currently assigned security duties at the Pentagon. The question was allegidly planted by a media representative and the answer was quoted inaccurately or incompletely. Typical. However I wonder if his office is in the Pentagon ...

There was another piece this morning saying that a Maine National Guard unit claimed it had all of it's equipment and it was fully prepared for it's deployment. However it was an Engineer Brigade so a great deal of it's engineer equipment is vintage (technologically speaking) WWII anyway. The most effective and safest way to clear a minefield (for example) is still an engineer on his knees prodding the ground with a non-metallic probe (a stick). There are more high tech ways but they're not as safe and not as reliable (they may leave unexploded mines behind).

And the insurgents aren't stupid, Engineers deployed to that theater will be mainly doing two kinds of work, IED (improvised explosive device - home made land mines and bombs) removal and infrastructure (schools, power plants, water treatment plants, hospitals and clinics, etc) construction. While directly attacking engineers doing the former may produce an immediate and rather violent reaction, only an idiot will attack the engineers building those structures. At least until they're finished or nearly so that they have to rebuild it again.

However I still can't shake the feeling that the clowns are now running the circus and it's only a matter of time before the monkeys get into the cash box.

It's all well and good ...

to say to the troops heading from Kuwait into Iraq that "You go to war with the army you've got, not the army you want" when you're flying to India the next day.

But for people who are going someplace where they might be killed or maimed because they don't have the equipment they need it's another matter entirely. And to alter none of your plans nor issue any orders or directives which change procurement or supply procedures only illustrates the callous disregard that Secretary Rumsfeld has for the men and women who carry out his orders. Previously I had thought he'd never served himself so was ill suited to being the Secretary of Defense, however I looked up his record on a DoD website. He was a Navy fighter pilot during the late 50s and early 60s. I don't see that he served in Vietnam but at least he wore the uniform. And since then he's had more jobs than a frycook at McDonalds.

So it's very possible that it's not he doesn't know what they're going through. He served so he should have some idea. The only conclusion I'm left to draw is that he does know but doesn't care. That doesn't bode well for the next few hundred soldiers, marines and airmen who will be killed in Iraq (or their families).

Soldiers suing

Okay I read some more this afternoon and one piece on MSNBC reported that the one identified soldier was a "specialist". So he wasn't a staff sergeant? However he did enlist in the Arkansas National Guard. This smacks of the Yolanda Huet-Vaughn affair during the first time over there. (most of the soldiers I knew thought she should have had the book thrown at her and locked up)

However we all know how "accurate" the media is with "facts" (especially MSNBC) when reporting about matters militaire ...

Harumph!

No idea how that particular "word" (sound?) is spelled, but it's definately one of those kind of days.

I was reading about the eight soldiers who are taking the Army to court over their stop loss and being prevented from mustering out. However the fine print when you sign a contract with our military stipulates "except in time of national emergency" and I've no doubt that this is what the military's lawyers are going to key on. I'm divided on the issue. On the one hand most of us who sign the contract know (or shortly learn) that basically the Army owns your soul and can do with it what they please. And the one sergeant named in the suit is 35 years old, a staff sergeant and has been around the block a time or two. So you would think he'd know what the real deal is. On the other hand it's become a tradition that the Army will screw you every chance they get and you should expect it. That's not necessarily a social or organizational trait that we as should encourage since it only contributes to the poor way we treat each other. We'll see what Andy (Mr. Law School) has to say about it tonight.

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Well the word has finally come down that we're going to move from LSB to the Telecom Building.

People in our group (mostly before it became this group) have been punished because of things they posted in their blogs (First Amendment anyone?) so I need to be careful here. We'll see what happens, personally I don't see this as being that interesting so I doubt anyone will notice here.

First my theory about moves. Management is a beast such that the *work* it produces is difficult to see/visualize/identify. I know for a fact that when I was a leader in the Army we were most successful when we prevented the impediments our soldiers encounted when they tried to do the *real work*. However when a manager doesn't clearly know this, they may decide that something easily visible which appears to be "progress" and an "accomplishment" is necessary, shuffling people around fills the bill. Hell, Scott Adams has made a living drawing cartoons about this sort of thing.

So management will see moving people as a way to "produce work" on their part. In reality they are now impeding the flow of work since nothing is going to get done while people pack up their cubes and move it all around. A prime example of this was when the Open Systems team was dissolved. All of us were forced to move. I moved one cube north and two cubes west. About fifteen steps from where I was. Into a smaller cube of course. At the same time Brand managed to avoid this sort of idiocy by being out of town in training.

However this move may actually have some logic behind it. We're moving to the building where all our servers are housed. That makes sense. However we're also moving away from the Networking team whom we work with quite a bit. But all the other systems administrators on campus are also moving into that same building. And another part of this move is the Training group moving to a more central location on campus, so it will be easier for their customers/students to find them and more convenient to get to the classes they offer. But the programming team, whom we also work with, is moving into our spaces, so their no closer than they are now since they occupy the space we'll move into.

So overall there may be some good reasons for this move.

That doesn't make the job of moving any more pleasant.

Christmas

Okay, I will admit that I'm not entirely unlike Ebeneezer (sp?). It's not that I don't have the Christmas spirit, it just seems that it comes a whole lot later for me than for everyone else. No, I didn't go out the day after Thanksgiving to shop. Shopping in crowded malls or stores just serves to piss me off and increase my blood pressure. However I had about half my Christmas shopping done already and finished most of the rest the next week.

And when I go to Phoenix to visit my family I get all teary eyed seeing how excited the kids are. But when it's just me I can't bring myself to get all cheery. Last Friday, for example, was the work Holiday events. A pot luck luncheon, a dessert contest and whatnot. However I have duty in the Op Center on Friday afternoons and have used that as justification for non-participation for a number of work events. Maybe it's like the line from Calvin and Hobbes, "It's not that I don't have common sense, I just choose to ignore it!".

But this year Tricia, Jon and the kids are going to Wisconsin to see her sister. We waited too long to try to get plane tickets so that turned out to be bust (even I can't afford $1400 for a Christmas gift). But I gave them some cash to drive and they're going. They'll drive straight from Phoenix to here, rest here for a bit and then straight to Milwaukee. I find if I think about it that I'm excited about the kids coming to the house. I don't think I'd have a tree this year if it weren't for their visit.

But most of what I'm doing lately is playing World of Warcraft. While I can't praise it unabashedly since there are some things I wish they'd done differently, it is still pretty damn impressive for a game like this. I've nearly stopped playing Galaxies, City of Heroes and EQ2 for this one (so it's a good thing that I've cancelled them). Now to just motivate myself to start with the workout machine again instead of running straight for the computer when I get home.

Thanksgiving

Okay here's the continuation of the list from yesterday. Not enough time and blog problems prevented me from adding to it yesterday.

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Thanksgiving was a blast. I had Erik and Mary over (usually I go to their house) and they brought their computers so we could hook them up to my cable modem (they have a satellite internet connection which is often pretty laggy) and play Everquest 2. We played off and on Thursday as cooking dinner permitted. They left about 10 so I resumed playing World of Warcraft (see above for more on that). I only played until 1 or 1:30.

Friday they came over in the afternoon (I'd been playing WoW again and having a blast) to play some and then we went to Olive Garden to celebrate my birthday (it fell on a Sunday last week but we deferred it until closer to payday so people could come). I recall a birthday thing there a few years ago having really good food and being very fun. So we had started going there again (I'd stopped because their food had gotten "I can make way better than this at home") for lunch and the occasional dinner. This time the food was only okay and the service was terrible. Making use of my dispensation to eat shrimp I got seafood alfredo and a shrimp scampi appetizer. They forgot the appetizer, there was no dressing on the salad and we constantly ran out of breadsticks. The alfredo was okay but the appetizer (when it finally got there after the main course) was very good. However I was mostly full so it's impact was considerably lessened. Everyone else got a good dessert but it slipped out that we were there for my birthday so they did one of those bad songs poorly sung and brought out a microwaved cake. It was okay but nothing close to the desserts. The overall verdict was "Great Company, So-so food, Good time" (instead of great time).

Saturday they came over in the afternoon to play again but they took their computers home around 9. So I went back to playing WoW and played all day Sunday. I got absolutely nothing accomplished but had a very nice weekend/holiday.

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We played Vampire last night. I'm slowing getting back into the player mode after running Iron Kingdoms for so long. Jason also decided that we had too easy a time with any encounters we'd had to this point so he "took the gloves off". Sharon's character got almost put down but I saved her with a well timed blast from a MAC-10. When I send them my "lessons learned" email the phrase I plan on using is "the MAC-10 was awesome when I 'opened the throttle' but it only gets six gallons to the mile". (since most of my references like this are too obscure I mean that it puts out a lot of firepower but burns through it's magazine in like nothing flat)

The discussion before the game was the usual hotbed of liberalism (excepting Lorie who was raised republican but votes for issues) and Andy mentioned a folk singer who had redone "Blinded by the Light". The refrain was "Blinded by the Right, waiting for the bomb...". There was more which made it even funnier to us but I forget it right now. Let's see what googling it finds ...

Well I found a number of interesting things.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0201-02.htm
A chilling article about the future of our government (by a liberal obviously but it seems to make some sense)

and a book by an ex-conservative named David Brock

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812930991/102-9153287-8044928?v=glance

And finally the song lyrics by Daedalus
http://servercc.oakton.edu/~billtong/bnsp/blinded.htm
based on the song by Manfred Mann and Bruce Springsteen.

Okay more later. I'd thought of something else to blog while I was googling but now I can't remember it. D'oh!