The Quagmire

The Aliens Have Arrived

2009-11-10T21:12:00.000-05:00

I'm watching V -- second episode. Getting weird interference which sort of sucks -- the frames seem to be skipping every now and again, and there's the random red streak through the picture for a fraction of a second. Pretty weird that it's happening on this show.

Anna is definitely smoking hot and she oozes with the charm of a used car salesman -- I'm pretty sure it's intentional. The guy who plays Chad the newscaster reminds me of Michael J. Fox. Except I like Michael J Fox and this guy is just irritatingly smug. Every time he smiles, I want to punch him in the fake teeth. I like the big black guy alien, but I don't remember his name. Erica, the lady FBI agent's okay, as is her son Tyler. Her partner was so-so. Father Jack is pretty good and he's actually trying. It's an interesting set of actors with far ranging skill sets.

I mention V first, because it's a segue into the next topic. There has been more and more extraterrestrials and whether they're real or not. More and more evidence appears in mainstream media. There are tons of video clips on YouTube -- some clearly hoaxes, some nebulous, and some clearly showing something. There's the news clips, though. More and more newscasts around the globe are reporting these things that have no explanation including Larry King. There are reports from foreign military groups such as the Belgian Air Force, including the hundreds of thousands of pages of documentation the UK released earlier this year. They don't leave much doubt that nobody knows what or who these visitors are. Don't believe it? Here's the link to the British Government's National Archives. These are the actual documents released by the Ministry of Defence. Too bad the US government won't release our documents. I'm curious about Roswell -- one way or another.

A few friends and I have been (independently) discussing this. I won't reveal who they are, because unlike me they might care what others think. I don't suffer from that affliction on this topic. We all agree, and we came to this independently, that sometime before the end of the decade there will be first contact. That is, aliens will make themselves known to us somehow. There will be undeniable proof. Some people theorize mass chaos, others think it'll be paradise found. I'm thinking life will go on with some cool new things. None of my friends think these aliens will be bad, though they may not be benevolent, either adhering to some secret agenda of their own. Yeah, aliens are coming, but it won't be like on TV (or V).

The hardest hit will be religion, because religion is all about Man and God. If you add another intelligent life, perhaps greater than man, that raises horribly difficult questions. It's also possible the aliens may be an ancient race (or not) and be able to prove or disprove what is written in the Bible (or not). It will be a very difficult time for organized religion. Say what you want about organized religion, they aren't stupid. They're smart and they're powerful. They control flocks of their faithful and while they all seem different, there are certain things that would cause groups of two or more major religions to set aside their differences.

So it should come as no surprise that no less than the Vatican itself is now re-investigating more seriously the possibility of life outside of Earth. And they're not hiding it. It might turn out to be a sham like many government investigations or maybe it'll be legitimate. But get ready, because by the end of this decade I predict you all will see with your own eyes intelligent life from another planet*.

I continue to enjoy Fake Michael Yormark thoroughly. Whomever he/she/they may be, there's plenty of amusement to go around. It's getting a little more smarmy and vicious.

And I hate this fucking cough. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE.

* Congress doesn't qualify since I used the word intelligent

Berlin Wall and such

2009-11-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

I'll start with the doctor. He said I can expect to have my cough another one or two weeks. Yay.

This is from the legendary lawyer, Razzie. I am speechless. Seriously. This is the most unusual, bizarre, unreal, unspeakable, product I've ever seen. It's a real product for a real condition. You will laugh or cry. Pick one.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall. Last night I watched a fascinating special (either National Geographic or Smithsonian, don't remember). What's kind of neat is my friend Jan lived through it as an East German. When we visited him in Berlin he told us a lot about it and that whole era and time. It's interesting hearing it from someone who was actually there. We saw the wall (what was left), Checkpoint Charlie (it still stands), and the Wall Museum. A little piece of history I remember so well, watching it on TV. I still remember "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Why do I read business reports? Stories like this one, may not be interesting on the surface but you learn things by reading them. Like Cadburys owns Green & Black chocolatiers and Kraft owns Toblerone. Who knew? It's chocolate, I have to care. That's why I read those reports.

Speaking of 20 years ago today, this site is worth exploring. You'll feel very old. Better yet, go here and select a year. Then cry.

Insanity

2009-11-08T19:56:00.001-05:00

Today my experience that all women are clinically insane on some level was confirmed. I will not relate the story, but must point out banging your head on a concrete wall is far more productive than trying to understand women. I know it's a cliché, I know it's dinosaur-era thought, but it's still true. So there. Hate me if you want. You are all crazy. Enough said.

A negative shout out to the Panthers who continue to not show up to their games. Another negative shout out to the Dolphins who refuse to win a game out of spite. A friendly shout out to Tim, who's cranky but getting better. A special Happy Birthday to Brenda.

My cough will not die. Damn I hate it. I think it's time to call the doctor instead of waiting another week.

I'm sure you've all read my Nucor rant. I thought I'd share this button I shall be wearing on my lapel at the Fastener Show. If I were really petty, I'd organize a boycott, but frankly I don't have the energy. (If you want a button and you're local, ask me. I have about a dozen of 'em.)

The button is 1-1/2" round.

I've pulled out the suitcase and will start packing for NIFS. I hate checking luggage, but since the fastener show involves sharp, pointy objects I have no choice. DOHS would not be pleased if I tried to bring them on the plane. New laptop is at home and it's all done being configured. Tomorrow we're going to make all the dinner reservations.

Not sure what else to report than anyone would care about.

Did I mention I hate this cough?

Nucor Suffers Crushing Defeat

2009-11-06T16:11:00.000-05:00

The good, fantastic, thrilling news is that Nucor, thanks to our industry's objections, had their complaint voted down 6-0 so there is no immediate effect. We Twittered and posted on our Facebook account earlier today. The official ruling may be read here.

Why did they lose? I don't know. However a 6-0 decision against them is a crushing, extraordinarily rare ruling. It may be the panel figured out their filing was sloppy as hell (including many companies not involved in the business of bolts and nuts were included on both sides), maybe they didn't like Nucor's lawyering wherein they made totally false statements as to certain facts. They certainly didn't believe Nucor and a 6-0 defeat is indicative of that.

The bad news is that Nucor gets a chance to appeal to the Internation Trade Comission Court. That takes 8 to 12 months. That organization can either dismiss it and it's dead or they can remand it back and say the ITC has to reconsider it. That's rare. The ITC then can affirm its decision or (even rarer) overturn itself. That's like getting a politician to say "I was wrong" -- unlikely.

At some point, Nucor will refile an amended complaint, assumedly with a law firm that conducts better research. It's expected that complaint will only cover Grades 5, 8, A325, and A490 hex machine bolts )woth matching nuts of course) because they have a case on some of those items. That one will likely pass -- possibly with the grade 5 bolts stricken from the list -- but this will be nearly two years down the road.

This is a HUGE defeat for Nucor and will keep thousands of American people working in their jobs in our industry. On behalf of my company, we want to thank the many people who offered their support and encouragement. We further want to thank those who took the time to complain or otherwise make their feelings known with the USDOC and ITC. This is a service to American workers and American industry. It's really a shame Nucor saw otherwise.

I do not hate Nucor despite some people's claims. I just don't like them or how they do business. And as one of the people at my company who can make a decision to not buy from a company, we didn't buy from Nucor and we will continue to not buy from Nucor. We buy from Infasco, happily. Nicer people, nicer attitude, and excellent quality. Customer service does matter. If Nucor learned that, they might not be in the position they are in now. This case proves they still don't get it. The customer is always right even when he isn't.

(And I have received so far eight congratulatory phone calls thanking me for my tireless work. I'm pleased but I don't need the credit. This was a group effort. An industry that hates each other came together as a group to fight this. This is a rare time when the system worked. Friends and family got involved too.)

A Brutally Long Post With Serious Stuff At The End

2009-11-05T19:19:00.000-05:00

I am not a Carl Hiaasen fan. Sorry, Carl. I'm just wildly indifferent about his writing, but Dave sent me a link to the latest Hiaasen column and it's priceless. This is what I call a WIN. Well done, sir. Well done. Bravo! A nicer piece of mockery I would be hard pressed to find. Speaking of mockery, Fake Michael Yormark continues to write scathing bits in his/her blog, though I am not nearly as entertained by his/her Twittering; it appears just to be there to send traffic to the blog. All my Panther buddies would do well to keep FMY in their RSS feeds. I do.

Over at my Flickr page, I posted some photos of a few of my authentic game-worn collectibles. I thought it might be interesting to for people to see this stuff. We've got two Brett McLean items, a pair of Trevor Kidd items, and a Mario Lemieux item. I've got tons of pucks and jerseys none of which are pictured -- though a number are listed on my for sale page. Prices for friends negotiable. To see the Flickr pictures, just click the Flickr button on the left sidebar. I got the McLean stuff from Matt Redmond formerly of the Miami Matadors (where I was briefly 'employed' as the volunteer webmaster). He's got some great authenticated game worn stuff. If you're interested, contact me and I'll put you in touch.

The Tube has changed the route of the Circle Line. It used to be a circle, and formed (more or less) the boundary for "zone one." It was called the Circle Line because it went in a great big (one hour) circle. I am all for progress usually, but I kind of think that maybe the should rename it since it no longer makes a circle. Here's the re-route, and the most distinguishing thing is it has a start and end whereas originally it was a circle with trains running clockwise and anti-clockwise. I'm just objecting to keeping the name.

To my Facebook friends, there is a way to add a Dislike button now. You need Firefox to do it and anyone else needs Firefox to view it. Here's the add-on. I've installed it and it works great. This is Facebook's most requested feature, and it's the least likely to arrive. Here's your answer. You have to tick the "add experimental add-on" button but don't be afraid. Quit your browser and restart and you're golden.

A few of you aren't going to like this one, but I am greatly amused -- and keep in mind that I am opposed to Obama's proposed Health Care ~~Disaster~~ Reform. To sum it up, an ultra-conservative magazine published an article about the alleged "death panels" and used as its example in their editorial: “People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.” Um, yeah, hello? Stephen Hawking who they claim wouldn’t have a chance in the United Kingdom was in fact born in the United Kingdom, has lived his entire life in the United Kingdom and lives there still today. Hawking himself responded, “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.” Like I said, a favour a plan. I just don't favour the current plan. Go read my previous commentary from my 31 October post.

You all know one of the largest peeves I have is the inability of people to use apo'stro'phe's properly. From it's/its to atrocities like their's and banana's, I get apoplectic over it. Someone else clearly does and has posted this awesome graphic. I wish all my readers would read it.

In college I watched and liked the original mini-series "V" -- though I will be the first to admit it hasn't aged well and going back and seeing those episodes on DVD (I own the whole series) is painful. I recorded the pilot of the new "V" on my DVR (aka TiFaux). I watched with some trepidation because I didn't think there was much chance it would be any good. I knew everything that was going to happen, right? Is it great television? No. Will it be a hit? Yes. I liked it. It was entertaining. They made some major changes to the plot to keep it a little more interesting and a lot more plausible -- and that same thing opened up a gaping credibility hole. I won't spoil it for you by spilling. The bottom line is I'm going to watch next week's episode too.

I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about Hippo Burger, aka Hippopotamus Restaurant. I don't care. I've got a little more to share with you. First here's the actual menu is here thanks to the same guy who scanned the cover. He can be my friend because he made me really, really happy. And more importantly he's an old photo of the actual restaurant he mentioned to me.

Lastly, a very serious topic. This is where you need to pay attention. I'm going to talk about Google and Privacy (with a capital P). You all use Google. I'm betting I don't have one reader who has never used it. We all knew Google stored a lot of information about what we did on-line and what it shared and with whom. If you use GoogleChat (which is part of GMail) every chat you've ever had is saved forever by default. Forever is a long time. Most people have never turned it off. Everything you've ever searched for on Google while logged in is saved. Everything. Forever. That search you did seven years ago for 'hookers with big tits' is still there. You betcha. Even if you use private browsing, if you are logged into any Google service, it's all recorded. They know more about you than your spouse and parents. At first I thought I was exaggerating to make my point, but after looking through it I'm not sure.

Google has always let you manage your search history, but almost nobody knew how. Me, I never really cared -- a little convenience goes a long way to making me happy in exchange for a little bit of privacy. But what I saw upset me more than a little. I have a Picasa account. I didn't even make one. When I registered for Blogger and created a profile picture, Google made one for me and put my picture there. No shit. Blogger, YouTube, Google, Alerts, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Docs, Friend Connect, Gmail, iGoogle, Orkut, Picasa, your master Google Profile, Google Reader, Google Talk, Google Voice / Grand Central. Those are all applications you can now control what information is stored, who it's shared with. You can also delete stored information. Those, BTW, are all applications which I have supposedly used and/or set up accounts with. Some of them I know I've never used -- like Picasa -- that i assumed are set up by other Google products. At the bottom of my screen it says "and 12 more applications" and those are ones which it's not possible for me to control. That list is equally disturbing. And to those of you have something to hide, it's even worse. I don't much care -- and I went through all of it, and you know what? I deleted barely a half-dozen things: mostly my medical searches. I don't feel that's public or should be.

You need to here http://www.google.com/dashboard and you'll probably have to log in. There should be a link under your accounts tab if you prefer. You need to go look at what's there and change what you don't like. Allow an hour or more. And prepare to be shocked, appalled, or possibly embarrassed.

I am not picking on Google at all. They've made no pretence of hiding what they're doing or why. And they've given us (way too late) the means to control what's collected. Yahoo, MSN, and everyone else does the same thing.Google has gone boldly first in giving something back that shouldn't have been taken away to begin with.

Out Damned Cough

2009-11-03T19:56:00.001-05:00

This cough sucks. Dry and hacky and it won't go away. I hatesssssss it. It's not as bad when I'm lying down in bed. Opposite of normal.

Shout out to Tara. It's okay: you can eat a PayDay bar if it makes you happy.

This from Dave Higgins. It's a subway map. But this one takes 250 of the best movies of all time and plants them on a (fake) subway map. The amount of work and effort that has gone into this is mind boggling. The main page is here and underneath are the links to download the image so you can spend hours looking at it. You can read the second page, mais il est en Français. However for those who don't speak French, he clearly states he took films as rated at IMDB and some of the films he doesn't feel are worthy of inclusion.

I've been toying with a Blu-Ray drive for my Mac since they came out. But they started at $1200 for an external 1x speed, so it never materialized. They started falling in price, and now this one is out for $400 and it claims to be 12x. Anyone know anything about this?

Another hockey night approaches this week, and along those lines, someone posted an amusing link on the Panthers Message Boards to this blog, entitled Fake Michael Yormark. It's clear someone has a lot of free time. There's a blog, a matching Twitter account, and even a full live.com profile. There's content, which if you look at it, is utterly hysterical. That assumes you know who Yormark is. He's the guy I'm not a big fan of because (a) he's a liar* and (b) he sold the team's soul. I've commented my opinions on various hockey message boards about him. Some people seem to like him but most people I speak to seem to get the "used car salesman" feeling from him. I am enjoying the mockery, though I think it's far too gentle. I gave it a thumbs-up on StumbleUpon and a mention on Facebook as well. If you're as amused as I am, feel free to share it.

Yeah, it's a short news day today. I'll be back in a few days with more, I suppose.

Did I mention how much I hate this cough?

I finished listening to the Pogues albums I got: The Best of The Pogues, The Very Best of the Pogues, and the Rest of the Best. This is now one of my very favourite bands. I want to see them in concert. Their albums are very good so far and am in love with them. Thanks John. My favourite song of theirs is The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. I have a Rod Stewart version. Not very good in comparison.

I also listened to Dengue Fever, an obscure band that John was playing at his BBQ that I really liked. Having now heard all of them, some is really good and some average. But I like them. Then I listened to Kiss Alive IV which was pretty damned good -- my first Kiss album.

Lastly, did I mention how much I really hate this cough?

* Specifically, I met with him (which was blogged) and he said he'd answer me within a week. In his own blog he mentioned me and said he'd be getting back to me within, two weeks. It's been about a year. That makes him a liar.

Hippo Burger and Other Random Stuff

2009-11-02T19:10:00.001-05:00

I finally got the cool hoodie I've mentioned to a number of you. There's a photo of it on my Flickr page. Well worth the look if I do say so myself.

When I was a kid in the early 1970s and living in the Bay Area, there was a place called Hippo Burger. It was way before the internet and I've long given up on anyone knowing what I was talking about it. From time to time, I've searched for it and gotten no proper matches. (There's are matches on the term, but they're not related.) Lo and Behold, for this has appeared on Flickr not even a month ago. Yeah, it's the cover from Hippo Burger menu.

Hippo Burger was pretty awesome. They even had an ice-cream burger -- as a kid that sounded good. In practice. it was an epic, messy, fail. Better was the chocolate burger with bacon.

It was on Van Ness Avenue -- closer to the Golden Gate end than the Market Street end in San Francisco. Their signs famously claimed "Burgers Made 100 Ways." Their claim to fame, what made them known, was the The Hearst Kidnapping Burger -- it was a bun with no Patty. Many of my readers may not be old enough to get the reference.

There are a few websites that have passing references to Hippo Burger (here, here, here, and here). The last one references a cookbook called The Hippo Cookbook which is on Amazon. It's nice to know I'm not the only one with fond memories of Hippo Burger. I've called it "Hippo Burger" because all these other articles do, but I remember that big red sign and was sure it was one word "HippoBurger" -- but in absence of evidence, I'll have to accept it.

For those of you who have been to London and tried to navigate your way through Oxford Circus, you know it's almost as bad as the traffic in Paris near L'Arc de Triomphe. They have, as of today, fixed it. Here's the BBC article and it includes a video so you can see what they've done and what's still to come. I am mightily pleased.

Jay Leno said today he'd be willing to return to the Tonight Show. Dear Lord, let's hope not. I never watched it when he was host because I've never been a fan of him or his comedy. His replacement, Conan O'Brien is much better and I can even watch it sometimes -- when I'm up and if I'm not watching Letterman. His new show is bombing, and I feel bad for him, but it's him. The show's being panned and he's going to be out of a job, and I think he knows it. I'm not sure what NBC was thinking. Then again, NBC hasn't been thinking for a few years.

Speaking of TV, I've decided I'm going try and watch the re-make of the series "V." You may or may not remember it and how cool it was then and how badly it's aged. Horrific acting, effects, and plot. Almost nothing redeeming. Yet we all watched it in my dorm room when the first V series aired back in the 1980s. It was significant because my room mate Andy Fischer had the only colour TV on the floor of our co-ed dorm. I remember this period well because, Domino's pizza -- before it sucked ass -- was having a contest to see which dorm floor out of the four dorms could eat the most pizza in a one month period to win a pizza part of course. We didn't win, but for the first ten days or so, because of the V thing, my room was winning the contest. Not the floor, but my room. Hawaiian pizzas with double cheese. I called, gave my room number, said "the usual" and there it was. No computer tracking then.

Lastly, an interesting article about Google maps. It's invented a town that doesn't exit. It's too bizarre to believe, yet here it is. And the Bay Bridge re-opened today, which I am sure is a relief to the people in the area.

I have a brutal headache. Welcome home Mom. Those two things are not related.

Boogers And Obama's Insurance Plan

2009-10-31T21:32:00.000-04:00

Boogers have nothing to do with this post, but sometimes a random post needs a random subject line.

* * *

It's Halloween and I've spent most of the evening handing out candy to munchkins of various ages. Now that it's later, it's older kids. Soon I'll turn off the outside light and call it a night. How the hell are there still trick-or-treaters after 9PM? I have the legendary Higgins Panther Pumpkin as my welcome sign.

I've sent most of my clocks back an hour already. I'll do the rest before bed. Don't forget if it applies where you live.

Today I saw Timmy and we went shopping for the new work laptop. I bought a Bluetooth mouse at CompUSA (aka TigerDirect), which I paid for because it's for me and I won't share it. I got a firewire 800 cable because mine has gone totally AWOL. And, most importantly, I got a new 2TB hard drive. That will become my Time Machine drive. I'll reformat the 1.5TB Time Machine drive and it will become my secondary drive. That will give me 2.5TB of space (1+1.5) and 2TB of backup, which is more than I'll ever need. I'll probably have to leave this thing to run overnight since the copy is going embarassingly slow. The 2TB drive is a 5400 -- as fast as they come right now, but it was only $179. It's amazing how cheap drivers are becoming. My first HD was 10MB and was $999. This is two hundred times bigger and 20% of the price. Technology.

We also went to the mall (boring) and I got insanely pissed off because most of the stores already had Christmas decorations up. I remember when they weren't put up until the day before Thanksgiving. Recently it started drifting back to the middle of the month, then early in the month, and now it's in October. I despise this. As recently as two years ago, Nordstrom's had a sign explaining they wouldn't put up holiday decorations until the day before Thanksgiving, but not sure if they still do that. Bless them if they do.

We also went to the bookstore which has become far less interesting as it's been totally overrun with vampire books. I ought to write one just because it'll make me rich. Except I just don't give a shit. I do want to write something, but I can't get motivated.

I left and called Erin (no answer), Karen, Stan (no answer), Jose, and Dad to check up on everyone. When I got home, I tested the mouse, installed the hard drive, and then went to Publix where shopping was more of a pleasure than usual because the entire staff was dressed up. I unloaded the shopping and left again and had dinner at Pollo Tropical before beginning today's Halloween festivities. While I did the candy passing, I watched the end of the UM game -- they won but didn't deserve to, and the coach should be fired immediately. Cal won, barely. I was watching the Hockey Night In Canada game (Leafs at Montreal) and eventually switched over to the Panthers game, though I can't find it in HD.

The copy of the TM hard drive continues and is now at 1.6 million of 3.6 million files. Ugh.

* * *

(Hey, should I got to three dot journalism style of blogging ala Herb Caen?)

Lastly, this is from my message boards where I went on a rant against Obama's current health care plan:

I'm sure you know my political leanings tend to the left on most things, though in some areas I'm definitely a traditionalist. I feel the need to post that disclaimer as it's relevant.

So, Mr. Obama is pushing his new Health Care Plan (I will call it HCP in this post). First, I do not have a fundamental objection to a governmental HCP. There's nothing inherently wrong with one. It works well in many countries, and the fact is it works well in far more countries than it doesn't work.

Secondly, the many claims of "Death Panels" are absurd. There are no facts or even reasonable implications that can make you come up with that. That's simply right wing bullshit, through-and-through.

Yet, I find myself in opposition to most of my friends because I am adamantly against this plan for a number of reasons.

First, the numbers don't add up. Anyone who says they do can't add. Period. There is not enough money to support this plan -- and that's based on projections. When has the government ever come in under budget. Never. So there's not enough money for the projected costs, the ideas to get more money are nebulous at best, and there's no accounting for overruns.

Second, this will dwarf Social Security and Medicare in scope and costs. Show me the money. You can't. It's not there. Ultimately me and you are going to pay for this in higher taxes. Certainly not short term while Mr. Obama is president, but in 10 years you will see your taxes rise -- I'm guessing at least 10% -- to cover this.

Third, as a business owner let's talk the penalty clause. They're going to fine businesses who don't provide some form of healthcare coverage. Our company currently pays $350 per employee per month for our 36 employees. That's for an HMO which is a mid-tier plan ($5000 deductible but with full Rx coverage and Open Access). Mr Obama intends to fine businesses that don't provide health care. Those fines will come to around $250. If you read it, you'll see it's based on a percentage of what the business would have paid compared with what an individual would pay for an open market policy. For us, we guess around $250. As a business owner which would I rather pay? $250 or $350? I'd rather pay the fine*. All my employees are suddenly uninsured. They go on the government dole. And ultimately all the working people of this country end up paying.

Fourth, there are ongoing arguments about whether or not illegal immigrants will be entitled to coverage. Will they? No they will not be covered. Will they end up being covered? I believe so. Many benefits in many states are extended to illegals. That sticks in my gut. Deep down I bet within five years, they'll be covered. There's no part of it which makes it hard to change down the road.

Fifth, the "public" option. I'm actually for that. Why? Because the current insurance companies are FOR PROFIT and that is why our rates are high now. They need competition. Aetna reported profits for FY2008 of $282 million dollars. Look it up. That was Tuesday. I'm not picking on Aetna because they aren't any worse or better than all the other ~~leeches~~ insurance companies.

That brings me to my point. I think there's a much easier fix. If all health insurance companies were not for profit, that would force rates way down. They'd be concerned with their patients' health and not how to beat me, my doctor, my pharmacy, and my hospital out of one more dollar. There'd be less arguing over getting the drugs and/or treatment you need to be healthy. Look at the good works the American Red Cross, Habitat For Humanity, Robin Hood Foundation, and so on do. Non-profits can do great work. For-profit insurance companies have [i]absolutely no incentive[/i] to do anything to make you healthy. It's far cheaper for them if you're dead.

This plan is bad. How anyone can be for it confounds me. Yes, there needs to be a plan. I fully support that. It's just this particular plan that's bad. It was rushed through without any proper thought or consideration of the effects on people and what will happen long term. I don't care whether the plan is socialist, communist, or anything. I just care that it works. This plan won't work. It's a disaster in the making.

* I would never actually do that to my employees because I feel a moral and ethical obligation to my employees, but I'm sure you realize many business owners don't feel that way.

Asset 1039

2009-10-29T21:17:00.000-04:00

Last night I took home company asset 1039. I know it's number 1039 because it's got a sticker that says so. All of our hi-tech equipment have these stickers. I configured it, set it up, and went through the short learning curve. Asset 1039 is the new laptop computer. Yes, it's a 15" MacBook Pro and happily the asset sticker is on the bottom so I don't really have to see it. It's a standard unit with only an anti-glare screen added (plus the world travel kit). I've installed Firefox, OpenOffice, and Adium. Adium is technically against the rules because it's a chat client, but it's my primary means of communication with the office when I'm in Asia and with my Asian vendors when I'm here, so as the one who sets the policies I'm making an exception. I also installed some shareware (Graphic Converter, Tex-Edit, iAntiVirus, AppFresh) which will be paid for next Monday. I may install Onyx or something similar soon.

Once all that was done, I went to our key sites (webmail, etc) and configured that. Then I set a user password for my account. As a company laptop, others can use it as well. However since we've got wireless at work more and more employees are bringing their personal laptops in which will probably reduce the demand. A side effect of that, is our network is really slowing down with the traffic.

Some cool new (yet old) pictures were put up on Flickr earlier today. My eyesight is officially shot and I need glasses to read anything now and even with them, sometimes I need a magnifying glass. Not fun.

I got a rare visit at work from a friend. Jason who I don't see very often (the one from high school and not the other two I know) came by and we went to the Hitchin' Post for lunch. Nice visit and glad we did it.

In more amusing news (thanks Razzie), Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has officially dropped the "F" bomb in Official correspondence to the State Assembly, only he did it very sneakily. I'm proud of him for being petty. The first URL is Wired, a reputable source. They got it from another reputable source, the Bay Guardian. The comments at the second URL worth it. But the ultimate fact check is the real letter is here on the State's own website. I am amused because they had it coming, but not so amused because it was an important bill. Then again, all politicians are suspect, n'est ce pas?

Another amusing piece comes from J. Carney who shared this Mental Floss link which is about eight things Disney has banned some of which you might not suspect. Under it are more links and the WalMart one is also worth a follow.

Over on my message board, we're rapidly closing in on the collection for the Yormark 666 jersey. You can read, but only members can post.

I skipped dinner, instead opting to eat half of my semi-furry raspberries and throwing the nasty ones away. I had some grapes too.

In other news, I found out the Oakland Bay Bridge has been closed since Tuesday after a repair failed. Not mentioned in the news or anything. I'm shocked because, well, I pay attention to Bay Area news. On the plus side, BART has blown away their ridership records.

Special shout outs to Jace who's feeling down, and Erin too.

Some new Flickr photos are available today.

An Enormous Post

2009-10-27T20:05:00.000-04:00

Fake Steve Jobs (aka Dan Lyons) wrote an amusing piece in his blog today. As you may have seen, Microsoft was planning to sponsor an entire episode of Family Guy. It was to be 30 minutes and sans commercials. The payoff for them was having all sorts of Windows7 references built into the show. Microsoft, aka The Borg, has pulled out. Fox claims they've got a new sponsor -- it would be ironic if it were Apple.

I continue to not "get" Twitter. In my last blog post I wrote "I still find no point at all to Twitter. Do I have one? Sure, but I don't use it much. Does one really need to delve into the minutia of someone's life to the minute." My friend, Daniel Haun, left a snarky comment about that on Facebook. He said, "The point to Twitter is ego masturbation." I liked the comment so much I Twittered (Tweeted?) it. I think that's a bit ironic.

Another friend, Liz, commented "If you really still think that about Twitter, you're definitely not following the right people I don't know who else you're following, but you're following me. Don't I post interesting stuff?" Yeah, a lot of your stuff is interesting. But that's not the point. It's the insane minutiae that people post on a daily basis. I figure at least half the posts most users make, shouldn't be made. I don't care, nor does anyone, that you've been waiting in line for dinner for 5, 10, 15, 20, etc minutes. Yet people insist on posting stuff like that. I don't "get" it.

In regards to commentary (again on my previous blog post), I am going to start correcting my posts when there are errors. Broken links, I'll just fix when people point them out via email. If they're pointed out by comment, I will still fix them but post a comment that it's been corrected. Simple typos will be fixed. But if anything ~~needs to be corrected~~ correcting and it's significant, I will use the time honoured strikeout feature. As always, any new commentary to an old post (a rarity) is clearly marked with the date added. To be clear, I always appreciate corrections to the blog, through prefer e-mail. Comments are for comments and discussions.

In news almost nobody will care about, I've added a classifieds section on the PHMB but it's in the members only area. Because I was feeling contentious, I called it "YormarksList" (as in CraigsList) because everything in the topic is for sale -- and that's Yormark, everything is for sale. These are all advertisements of a sort and what better name than his? If you're a hockey fan, please take a moment and join the board. I really do think you'll enjoy it. When the official board changed to the new format about a month ago, our traffic spiked. Bad for them and good for me: they forgot the one thing that was most important. They forget "know your customer and what (s)he wants" and their activity has plummeted from what was in the off-season. Yeah, the season started and traffic went down instead of up. Censorship and a bad user interface is a guaranteed fail.

I have been thinking of taking up a collection to get a Panther jersey with the name "Yormark" on the back and "666" as the number. With everything it'll be around US$160. Everyone who contributes will be allowed to wear it to games. As John mentioned if we all take turns wearing it, at some point he'll wonder how many of them are out there, even though it'll be only one. The point will be at every game, someone will have it, wear it to the game and take at least one lap of the lower bowl before the game, and at each intermission. I will keep the jersey in the off season and be responsible for care and cleaning -- if you want to clean it during your possession, that's up to you. I'll have to get XL so everyone can wear it. I might be able to squeeze in a L if nobody needs the XL. In the corner where the "C" for captain goes, we'll have the official logo of Yormark (for which I will pick up the cost.) If there are leftover funds, they will be donated to Habitat For Humanity -- in Mr Yormark's name -- and everyone who donates will be given a full accounting of every last penny. If I do not collect enough, your money will be returned.

Dave sent me this link about the New Facebook (which is replacing the old New Facebook.) Users are totally up in arms. I really hate it, but just don't have the energy to do anything about it. You know, the bottom line is if they want to fuck up their service, let them. I don't like it because Facebook now unilaterally decides which posts you see from which friends. You can block someone, but if someone's not blocked, you don't see everything they write. If you go to their page, you'll see you've missed stuff. Of course you can use the live feed which picks up more, but even if you select it, it eventually returns back to the new news feed. Which is what everyone hates.

In regards to my Saturday post about AvMed. I got my prescription today. It's amazing what a very firm, demanding, and polite but threatening letter will do. I demanded a written apology, told them I am their worst nightmare and will dog them relentlessly as long as their 'staff' feels they know more than my doctor. I told them every time they fail to comply with my doctor's orders, I will file a formal written complaint with the state (and you all know I will, too). They, as I said, figured out that they should go bother someone else. Again, I am not asking them to do anything that I asked: I am asking them to do what my licensed medical doctor asked. I do not feel anyone that has not personally examined me and my case has the right to override what my doctor says. And this was stupid. The new pill costs half of what the old one cost. Seriously. How stupid can you get? Oh, and the lady never called me back as predicted. As a side bonus, the pharmaceutical company that makes the new drug picked up the tab on this first order (well, all but $5 of it).

I wasn't going to post Nucor news, but there is news and it's on the company Facebook page. I have no comment on an individual level. I only say, we're working on a filing if we can meet all the technical requirements. I've never seen anything so complex and confusing. No wonder those lawyers charge $2k or more per hour. Our corporate WiFi is working well (still) and from a technical standpoint the Vista and Windows7 laptops (our employees property, not ours) work with the least problems, though I am loathe to admit it. The Windows XP systems running XP Home are the worst.

I had mentioned visitors by country to the Interstate Screw Corp web page. Here's a summary from 1-1-09 through 26-10-09. There's an Excel version which is cooler because each country has the flag in front of it, but there was no practical way to post that here. I can e-mail it if anyone is terminally curious.


Countries		Pages	Hits
United States	us	54,820	355,033
Russian Federation	ru	4,470	5,330
China	cn	2,895	12,822
Japan	jp	2,325	2,839
Spain	es	1,542	2,612
Romania	ro	1,424	1,802
Canada	ca	1,402	6,782
Germany	de	1,159	1,885
Taiwan	tw	695	4,561
Great Britain	gb	524	2,533
Ukraine	ua	493	587
India	in	429	2,439
European country	eu	419	934
Chile	cl	419	3,567
Peru	pe	378	3,005
Jamaica	jm	345	2,461
France	fr	324	769
Colombia	co	314	2,037
Latvia	lv	310	353
Hong Kong	hk	304	1,136
Argentina	ar	297	1,891
Venezuela	ve	271	2,364
Mexico	mx	260	2,081
Netherlands	nl	252	493
Malaysia	my	216	1,534
Cayman Islands	ky	182	1,845
Sweden	se	171	590
South Korea	kr	165	1,082
Aruba	aw	163	1,395
Ireland	ie	162	2,190
Israel	il	158	712
Australia	au	139	996
Brazil	br	137	754
Panama	pa	131	1,138
Costa Rica	cr	129	1,351
Singapore	sg	128	762
Bahamas	bs	123	1,000
Antigua and Barbuda	ag	118	952
Turkey	tr	115	734
Dominican Republic	do	115	1,112
Italy	it	102	488
Austria	at	102	273
Guatemala	gt	100	636
Barbados	bb	98	686
Ecuador	ec	97	1,075
Thailand	th	97	536
Puerto Rico	pr	94	900
Egypt	eg	76	598
Ghana	gh	73	679
Hungary	hu	70	211
Suriname	sr	70	1,039
Greece	gr	69	529
Former Czechoslovakia	cs	66	192
Poland	pl	61	325
Portugal	pt	59	231
Haiti	ht	58	402
Philippines	ph	53	351
Trinidad and Tobago	tt	53	431
Czech Republic	cz	51	151
Iran	ir	47	264
Switzerland	ch	44	261
El Salvador	sv	44	324
Virgin Islands (USA)	vi	41	429
South Africa	za	41	189
Indonesia	id	39	207
Uruguay	uy	37	637
Finland	fi	36	245
Anguilla	ai	35	213
Turks and Caicos Islands	tc	34	287
Pakistan	pk	34	282
United Arab Emirates	ae	32	277
Denmark	dk	29	160
Nigeria	ng	28	196
Saudi Arabia	sa	27	101
Belarus	by	27	72
Moldova	md	27	27
New Zealand	nz	26	68
Qatar	qa	24	24
Bulgaria	bg	21	99
Belgium	be	21	136
Vietnam	vn	20	141
Nicaragua	ni	19	158
Norway	no	19	153
Guam (USA)	gu	18	138
Belize	bz	17	149
Guyana	gy	13	156
Slovak Republic	sk	11	68
Lithuania	lt	9	32
Slovenia	si	6	44
Angola	ao	5	15
Malta	mt	5	23
Luxembourg	lu	5	5
Senegal	sn	5	15
Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire)	ci	4	4
Kuwait	kw	4	15
Bahrain	bh	4	4
Croatia	hr	4	39
Jordan	jo	4	13
Estonia	ee	4	13
Yemen	ye	4	64
Bolivia	bo	3	31
Georgia	ge	3	15
Cuba	cu	3	36
Namibia	na	3	3
Saint Kitts & Nevis Anguilla	kn	3	38
Lebanon	lb	2	2
Cyprus	cy	2	2
African Regional IPO	ap	2	2
Netherlands Antilles	an	2	12
Bosnia-Herzegovina	ba	2	10
Paraguay	py	2	12
Myanmar	mm	1	1
Syria	sy	1	1
Tunisia	tn	1	1
Bermuda	bm	1	1
Uzbekistan	uz	1	10
Afghanistan	af	1	11
Gabon	ga	1	1
Iraq	iq	1	1
Kazakhstan	kz	1	27
Morocco	ma	1	4
Ethiopia	et	1	1
Liechtenstein	li	1	1
Armenia	am	1	30
Algeria	dz	1	2
Sri Lanka	lk	1	10
TOTAL VISITORS -->		80,788	454,208

Comment ça va?

2009-10-26T19:40:00.000-04:00

Ça va. Where to begin? Je ne sais pas. Tomorrow will begin the insurance wars with AvMed. I am not looking forward to that, but it's important they learn up front they should pick on someone else. If you think fighting back and fighting back hard doesn't help, you're wrong. With all the people an insurance company has to fight every day -- after all they're happy to take your money, but God forbid you want them to pay a claim -- they eventually will leave you alone. If your claim is legitimate. But if they realize you'll go along, they'll never stop. Trust me, after I filed a formal complaint against Aetna with the State of Florida, Aetna never bugged me again. AvMed is next but they get one more polite courtesy call. When fighting back, you need to be fair, reasonable, and let them work things through their proper channels. Give it a chance. However, if they think three weeks is "reasonable" it's going to be rough going for them. I refuse to let an insurance company computer and clerk override a decision made by a licensed medical doctor. That is, quite simply, unreasonable.

The advent of smartphones, especially the iPhone, have overloaded the 3G network(s) so bad, the FCC is preparing to act. I wish to point out that those of you who don't have quad-band GSM phones will be screwed. Big time. Most Verizon GSM phones (as opposed to the CDMA ones) are tri-band. As I've always advised friends and family, if you're getting an international phone get a quad-band phone that automatically selects the correct band. This oversaturation will continue to be a problem.

A survey question for my readers: like most people, I make errors when I blog. I rarely actually edit a post. For example, when someone points out a broken link in the comments, I leave the comment pointing out the error and then make a new comment with the correction. I think this keeps the blog more true to form. (I do make exceptions to add to a post or to correct serious factual errors) It also keeps those who read via RSS from getting old posts suddenly appearing. This all came up because over the past few weeks there have been a number of busted links pointed out. Most of them come courtesy of Blogger's new WYSIWYG interface which I'm not quite used to. Of course, over time, some links just break.

I've been listening to my FineTune playlist since I got home. (Go to darsys.net or darsys.com and scroll down and click play.) And while you're down at the bottom of the page, don't forget there are ads on the left side bar. It's okay to go look at some of them.

We were unable to find skates in Pablo's size yesterday. Sucked for him. And was the world's shortest visit.

Motivation is currently escaping me. I was going to try and write this and next month, and I just can't get motivated. I was going to try and read, too. Hasn't happened -- and I've got unread Pratchett! *sigh*

I still find no point at all to Twitter. Do I have one? Sure, but I don't use it much. Does one really need to delve into the minutia of someone's life to the minute.

Lots of hits on the Nucor topic from all over the country. As usual, everyone finds out about these sorts of things after it's too late to do anything about it.

All you Mac people hitting my blog on AT&T's VDSL product (U-Verse) -- it's okay to contact me and ask for help. I see lots of hits regarding configuration for SMTP and NNTP. NNTP is no longer supported by AT&T so you can't make it work. But SMTP/POP issues I can help with. E-mail me or IM me.

I was studying my logs for all my sites today. It's really fascinating to see who comes to your site and what they do. Not so much individual IP addresses, but you wonder why an employee of Lockheed would spend damn near 1h 30m on your site during work hours. I don't care, but you figure his or her employer would. I get lots of things like that. I also learn that on the Interstate web page, visitors from Spanish speaking countries rarely use our Spanish web pages. They are used almost entirely by Floridians and Californians. The most fascinating things to me, though, are the countries we get visitors from and the unusual distributions. This week nearly 1/3 of our traffic was from Aruba. I don't know.

SheepSaver

2009-10-24T20:03:00.000-04:00

First, a repeat of something from some time ago. If you're a Mac user and running OS-X you may find the random need to run an OS-9 application. If you're running Intel architecture instead of PPC architecture that is, technically, not possible (or PPC with an OS greater than 10.4). However, it can be done. Even on my eight core machine, it's pretty slow. But if you have an old application you just have to run, this is the way. It's the only way I've found to get my Claris Resolve documents converted. I have to run it, open them, and save them as Excel 1995 format, then load Excel and convert them into a modern Excel. But it works. (If you have WordPerfect Mac, please note that NeoOffice will open the documents with most formatting intact. OpenOffice, however, doesn't work so well.) Conveniently, if you want to double platform jump, AppleWorks -- the old version before it was named ClarisWorks and then changed back to AppleWorks -- will read AppleWorks GS, then you can save it in a more modern, readable format. See this URL for downloads and such.

I want to give a special shout out to my friend Tim who is a pretty cool guy. I'm glad I know him. As soon as I figure out why, I'll let you know :)

Special thanks to John for turning me on to the Pogues. I am listening to their Very Best Of album right now and will soon move on to the individual albums he suggested. I found them quite by accident on Sirius when I heard the Sunday morning Celtic Rock show. There was a song called Dirty Old Town which I fell in love with. John has way better taste in music than me -- except he thinks Lamb of God is better than Limp Bizkit. That's some horrific character flaw he's got in spite of the fact we both agree neither one is worth a pile of hot shit on a cold day in the arctic circle.

I ate dinner at Chik-Fil-A because I had nobody to eat with tonight. At least it was free courtesy of a coupon I had, so that was nice. Free food tastes better than food your pay for.

So we have new insurance (AvMed) at work. I have encountered my first difficulty. They have declined my prescription and wish to speak to my doctor. Now, on the plus side I actually got a live human on a weekend. On the minus side, they could do nothing. This means, of course, I will once again file a formal complaint with the state's insurance commissioner asking why they continue to allow an insurance company clerk to override a licensed medical doctor. I will say the nice lady on the phone promised to call me Tuesday to see what she could do to speed up the three week process. I am not holding my breath and I will call my doctor Tuesday if she doesn't call with good news.

Mom, have fun in Canada, land of Maple things. Maple, yummmmmm.

Kiss Alive 35 Concert Review, Nucor (Brief), and Announcements

2009-10-23T19:00:00.000-04:00

Disc versus Disk. I covered this in my blog well over a year ago (see here) and now none other than Apple Computer has weighed in on the same subject. They pretty much mirror my explanation with one notable exception. Nice to know they agree with me.

I want to plug this post called 121 Persuasive Techniques To Influence People at the Virtual Synapses blog. I normally don't plug stuff like this, but this is a great post. For all us Machiavellians out there, you'll recognize a great deal of stuff. And for those who need some help in that area, it's a good post. From a business standpoint, you'll find it very useful both in conducting your business, or more importantly, being on the lookout for people who use these tactics against you.

I have had a visitors from The Cloak an anonymous proxy server. I normally don't care but, well, sometimes they raise a red flag. Do I know who it is? Nope. But I know where they're really connecting from. If you use The Cloak, please note that certain web analytic tools are able to report back the real ISP you're using it from. Since the user from that proxy was the ONLY user from that proxy, I compared all three logs for that entry -- remember I use three tracking programs -- and found the information. So, if you're using it, you're not nearly as clever as you think. I have your real IP address (yawn) with which I shall do absolutely nothing. Just so you know, if you really want to hide yourself, connect with AOL. While AOL has a record of where you go, you show up to a website as the main AOL server and nobody except AOL will know it's you. (BTW, Cloak person, you're accessing the site with an iPhone -- that should get your attention that I know that.) I post this here only because you all need to know, that no matter how anonymous you think you are on the Internet, you aren't. I learned all this from my desk without doing anything illegal. Can you imagine what someone determined could find out? You are not anonymous. Ever.

I am still so tempted by this chair. Will someone please talk me out of it.

Last night, courtesy of Timmy's work, I saw Kiss in concert. The opening act was a band called BuckCherry. John insisted they were worse than Lamb of God. First, I am not sure that's possible. Lamb of God is worse than sweaty balls at a Korn and Limp Bizkit double header concert and Fred Durzt following you home. Now, I have to tell you John has pretty good taste in music. I don't like everything he like or anything but he's a real musician and we do have some common ground and I respect his opinion on music. (And he turned me on to the Pogues for which I am deeply grateful). The lead singer for BuckCherry has a great voice. And I liked the songs. Would I pay to see them in concert, probably not. Would I buy a greatest hits album? Yeah. The bottom line is I sat through their entire 45 minute set and liked it. And I'd listen to them again.

As you know me and every single person who has been to the BankAtlantic Center for a concert spends the rest of their life trashing the acoustics. It's a known, ongoing problem: the instruments drown out the vocals and the sound bounces around. A few artists have awesome soundmen who manage to compensate, but most don't. Buckcherry and Kiss had great sound. Their concert sets (from a strictly technical standpoint) where as near to perfect as you could be in the building. You could hear the instruments individually, you could hear the singers individually, and you could understand the lyrics (as much as you can expect at a heavy metal concert). This concert sounded way better than Metallica or damn near any other show I've seen here.

Kiss opens big. Really big. Amazingly big. And loud. Kiss makes a Statement. With a capital S. The set list follows this post. Kiss Alive 35 Tour. I actually enjoyed the show though I am not a huge Kiss fan. I do like a number of their songs. I must say Gene Simmons is looking his age and it was pretty scary, and not in a good way. All the HD closeups on the video screens you could see the white makeup caking in the cracks of his old age skin creases. Paul Stanley's speaking voice was so accented as to be comical, but he's got a great personality, but his age also showed though he's aged far more gracefully than poor Gene.

I was disappointed to find there were pre-recorded tracks used. There were a few times nobody was playing their instruments and yet you clearly heard guitar music going on. And Gene Simmons, never a good singer, shouldn't sing. Leave it to the new young guys who really can sing pretty well. I wonder at some points if maybe Gene's mic wasn't live. Gene puts on a good show, but to be honest, he is the weakest link in the band from a music standpoint. The setlist spanned their entire career and each and every song was well done. The stage show was fantastic and Kiss is rightly famous for it. You can find no fault with it.

1. Deuce
2. Strutter
3. Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll
4. Hotter Than Hell
5. Shock Me
6. Modern Day Delilah
7. Calling Dr. Love
8. She
9. Parasite
10. 100,000 Years
11. I Love It Loud
12. Black Diamond (opened with awesome "Stairway To Heaven" snippet)
13. Rock And Roll All Nite
14. (Encore) Shout It Out Loud
15. Lick It Up
16. Love Gun
17. Detroit Rock City

Today was Attorney Day and I spoke with a number of attorneys today regarding Nucor. Officially, unless it's reopened, I'm done my part. Interstate filed its final paper via UPS Red today disputing the veracity of some of the recorded testimony. I also wish rescind the nice comments about AMM made previously. I don't wish to get into a pissing war with them, but basic journalism requires fact checking. They have, again, failed spectacularly in their fact checking. How? They didn't call to check the facts. Period. The only person who can verify what I said (or didn't) is me. As a result, one must suspect everything the say. I don't care how nice they are, they are in my opinion irresponsible journalists. I am also over Mr Price unless he antagonizes me further by moving his lips. After talking with various people who were at the hearing, it's becoming accepted throughout the industry that more damage was done to Nucor's case by Mr Price than by the defence. I hope that there will be no more Nucor posts here until I report on the results in early November.

My new laptop has been delayed at least two weeks and if it doesn't show up in time for the fastener show, I don't know what I'll do. I'm really pissed. Today I got a box the size of a show box in it with the airline power cord. Yeah. That's it. Nothing else. A cable. I also got a shipping confirmation for some other part that I'm not sure what it is. So I'll get another big box with nothing inside.

Post nasal drip sucks. I've stopped using Technorati. It's become worthless.

For those of you who read my private blog, you will need to email me (or IM works too) for access. As you may have noticed, it's no longer at its former location. There are new updates at a new location.

Zagat (and Nucor, etc)

2009-10-20T19:24:00.000-04:00

First, I spent nearly an hour voting on the Zagat airline survey. Then, the survey crashed eating all my votes. I'm really, really, really pissed off. I won't do it again. I had given Virgin Atlantic top marks with DL and CO next, followed by Dragonair, BA, AC, AF, Air China, China Southern, with AA near the end, followed only by China Eastern. If you care. Normally, I do Zagat restaurant work. (And I did their recent mobile phone survey, but have no idea where that will lead.)

John Ashcroft is asking the court to reconsider being held personally liable for his acts in violation of the rights of people in the aftermath of 9-11. You know, if it was terrorists and terrorists only, we'd be in murky waters as to whether or not I cared. Ashcroft asked the full 9th Circuit to review the ruling made by a three-judge panel last month. The panel said that misuse of the material witness law was repugnant to the Constitution. That surprises him? The Constitution is the law of the land. You don't get to use it for toilet paper. Hell, I like Mr Price better than I like Ashcroft. Barely.

I'd like to welcome the new members who have mysteriously appeared in Team CMOT's ranks at Seti@Home. Everyone's welcome. This is for the betterment of humankind. It's important to do things to better the world you live in. It's why I actively support the Robin Hood Foundation and Habitat For Humanity with my charitable contributions. They are proven organizations that do good work for people who need it. I do other things, but this is not for bragging rights. I mention those two, because I hope next time you feel like donating money (or time), you'll consider helping them.

I've also decided that this year I am not doing holiday cards. I know many of you will not care, but some of you have come to know and love my snarky, irreverent, cynical, sarcastic, and funny holiday cards. There won't be any this year or any following years. It's over. Thanks for your support. I made this decision last year, and have consistently thought about it, and had no desire to change my mind.

I am in the home stretch on my Beatles Box Set and am on the last album. I've got all the bonus stuff still to go, so it'll be a few days. But my statement stands: you need this box set. I'm going to get the mono box set too. I'm quite curious.

An interesting study shows that the airlines that charge checked luggage fees are doing worse than those that don't. And there's a correlation. This apparently surprises them. The airlines are, of course, dumber than dog shit on a hot summer day. It's because airlines like American lose the luggage they charged you to check, then won't refund your luggage fee, nor reimburse you for expenses (toiletries and underwear) that they promised they would. Airlines wonder why they are almost as popular as used car salesmen. If they were brighter, they'd have figured it out.

Nucor news: Tom Miller, the GM of Nucor, has taken a shot at us in American Metals Magazine. AMM never did their follow up as promised so they suck ass and I retract my previous nice words. Nucor Fastener has 220 employees (approximately) and they don't seem to care that they'll cost thousands of American jobs. Anyway, I have contacted an attorney representing one of the large defendants about Mr Price. It's too late to enter more data, but if they allow secondary filings, the attorney in question was quite interested in what I shared with him in the way of evidence. I am feeling almost, what's the word? Smug. Yes, smug. If it comes to fruition, I will be feeling schadenfreude. As I said, our corporation cannot legally file additional papers for admission into the records of this case at this time. However, from a procedural position, we can alert the Commission to when statement(s) made on the record were false along with evidence of same.

Mr Miller's statement (excerpted):

The story repeats a claim that if anti-dumping and countervailing duties are imposed, consumers would pay more because so many products incorporate fasteners. Fasteners typically constitute only a tiny portion of the total cost of the products in which they are used, such as heavy trucks, bridges and buildings, so this case is unlikely to have any substantial impact on the overall cost of those items. Contrary to some of the assertions in the story, relief from illegal trading practices will not cost American jobs but save them.

Yeah, Mr Miller has a complete failure to grasp the facts. First, he's right that the bolts and nuts used in "trucks, bridges, and buildings" only constitute a tiny portion. Does he honestly think that's the only place bolts and nuts are used? If he does, he's not only an idiot, but a fucking idiot. Chairs, appliances, bicycles, furniture, and the list goes on and on and on. Second, on the jobs front, let's assume only 10% of the people in our industry employed in the USA lose their jobs -- the estimates are closer to 30%. That's about 1000 people. Nucor employs 220. Not only is Mr Miller unable to grasp the facts, he's deluded and can't do math. And that saves American jobs how?

On the plus side, I've heard from a number of my colleagues. Nucor is going to be at the NIFS show as I mentioned. It appears there's an organized protest going to happen at the show which would be a first -- and I have absolutely nothing to do with it. Will I participate if they organize it? You betcha. I really do hope Nucor takes leave of their senses and actually shows up at their booth so they can see what the industry thinks of them. Rumours continue to swirl about an organized permanent boycott of Nucor. That would be awesome. I'd participate, but since I buy zero from them, I am not anticipating my support will be valuable.

This last bit, courtesy of Paul, is a mind-blower. How would you like to make $2000 for sitting on your ass and doing nothing? Seriously. It's not a scam, but it's how to scam the system. The government is offering rebates for those buying electric cars. Here's a company that will sell you one for the value of the rebate, then buy it back from you for what you paid, leaving you with $2000 of the rebate in your pocket. Read Here. It subverts the intent of the subsidy, but it's legal. It's also why I am opposed to subsidies and bailouts because someone always gets rich at the expense of us (the taxpayers). For fact checking, please note you need enough taxable income to cover the tax credit, and you need the money up front for the payment which you get back, and (most importantly) you have to trust this guy will actually hold up his end of the bargain.

A Long, Long Personal Nucor Rant

2009-10-19T18:46:00.001-04:00

Let's start with some social injustice commentary. A Louisiana judge recently refused to issue a marriage license to a couple because one was black and one was white. His claim was the children would suffer because they were bi-racial, and he claims he's turned couples down for this before. There was quite an outcry as one would rightly imagine. Jack Cafferty of CNN has an interesting column on it. Now, for the commentary I would direct you to the comments on his column. Most people are upset and calling for the judge's head. A few are defending the state of Louisiana and saying not everyone there is like that. And, as one might guess, a few people are defending the guy. Which is sad, but makes for some wildly entertaining reading. My favourite comment is: It's good of him to look out for those biracial children. You know how they turn out. Grow up go to Harvard and become the President of the United States.

The following post are my personal views and do not necessarily express those of my company.

I have written and asked for permission to post the whole article from American Metal Market, by Corinna Petry, but in the meantime here's a small excerpt. Only registered, paid members can read the whole article.

CHICAGO -- The U.S. Commerce Department has agreed to initiate anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations on fasteners from China and Taiwan, based on petitions filed last month by Nucor Fastener. At least 19 American importers of fasteners from China and Taiwan-companies with operations in 14 states from Florida to Oregon have written letters to protest Nucor's petition.

A letter from Interstate Screw Corp., Hialeah, Fla., argues that "first and foremost Nucor has made their claim against parts that they do not make, never made and cannot make. That is absurd. That would be like Ford Motor Co. filing a complaint against China for selling bicycles too cheap." At most, Nucor's claim should cover only the parts they actually make, the company said.

Trade attorney Price claimed that "a foreign producer of fasteners contacted all the American importers and coached them to write these letters. This type of process taints the ability of the ITC to gather accurate data in the respondent questionnaires."

That's a short excerpt, and Mr. Price's statement as written leads one to believe specifically that our letter was written as a result of said contact from a foreign producer. First, the foreign producer sent letters to their customers, not "all the American importers" -- that's a disconnect of many thousands of companies. What he says is wrong. Period. It's a lie. It is contrary to the facts. I can prove that and I will, but not to him.

Here's an excerpt from his statement in the official hearing transcript. Unfortunately, many of the questionnaires that have been submitted to this Commission may have been tainted by a well organized effort by a Taiwanese producer. We know that written bullet points were circulated to importers by e-mail by a Taiwanese producer along with a suggestion, to quote it, "Don't trust U.S. Government officials to think this through properly." Copies of this transcript, and indeed all the filings to date, are available by e-mailing me at my work address. I will gladly send them to anyone who writes and asks. Lots of large files (PDF and DOC).

I sent Mister Price an email this morning. He wrote to the AMM people with a CC to me. It wasn't an apology. It wasn't even an acknowledgement his law firm is sloppier than Good Memphis BBQ. He's in lawyer mode for sure. Because I am clearly a better man than he is, I won't post his e-mail here. I have manners. But I can post parts of mine here.

Dear Mr Price:

I am responding individually and not on behalf of my company. First, you’re absolutely right: I don’t like Nucor’s way of doing business, and if it makes you feel any better I don’t like you either. I have lots of attorney friends and there’s those few that give the whole lot a bad name. That, sir, is you. How’s that for an opening?

The bottom line is you made a 100% false claim in a national publication because you didn’t bother to check the facts. It speaks to the sloppy research your law firm conducted in the initial filing (you include foreign companies that make only screws and nothing you’re filing against and also include American companies that import nothing you are claiming against.). Sloppy, inaccurate work. In the age of the Internet where you could have checked it all easily, that’s embarrassing to you and your company.

The complaint you filed for Nucor on Wed 23 Sept is a direct attack on our industry and the jobs in our industry. A Nucor job is not worth any more than an Interstate job or any other job in our industry, though based on the filing, they certainly seem to feel that way.

I was incensed by the filing which I received a copy from a US Citizen (A good ole’ southern boy to be exact) on Thursday 24 September. I wrote my letter over the weekend and sent it 29 September 2009. The UPS tracking number, sir, is 1Z3461291349894977, so I’m not quite sure where or when you think some foreign entity contacted me and had me write a letter. [The letter to which he refers is dated after my letter was already delivered.]

Your implication that anyone other than myself had anything to do with my letter is absolutely insulting. You and the magazine were given a chance to apologize for the error. The magazine did and you didn’t. It speaks to your character, sir. A gentleman, sir, owns up to his mistakes and apologizes. The fact you didn’t speaks volumes.

To be clear, when I found out about this absurd filing, I personally called my local competitors – and let me tell you we don’t usually get along well -- and solicited their thoughts. I also encouraged them to write in. I also emailed all of my affected overseas vendors to make sure they were aware of what Nucor was trying to do.

Sincerely,
Eric Seiden

PS: To the staff of AMM; I appreciate your absolute professionalism and courteousness throughout this matter. I have nothing else to say to Mr Price, but since he sent this to all of you, I thought it best that I do the same. Our company will also have a formal response to Mr Price, but that will be delivered to the ITC and USDOC prior to their decision.

Mr. Price is a piece of work. Personally, I'm done with him unless he provokes me further. As a corporation, a very professional letter providing documented facts will be delivered to the people involved in this proceeding. It's important they know what sort of person Mr. Price is. They are relying on the testimony of a man who shown he has little regard for fact checking. His statements and documentation prove that. Sloppy and lazy through and through. I'm glad Nucor's hired him: they deserve each other.

Mr. Price is fighting for his share of the nearly one million dollars Nucor's paying his firm (http://tinyurl.com/ygnrdsc <-- see that's a fact check, Mister Price) where as I am fighting for the jobs of my employees, my colleagues, and, of course, the future of our company.

Mr. Price points out that (A) he reads my blog and (B) I've got it in for Nucor. I dislike Nucor. I've said that repeatedly. I've made no effort to hide that, though he seems to think I have. He doesn't know me well enough to know, if I don't like someone, I don't make an effort to hide it. However, this fight is, specifically, against the unwarranted petition Nucor filed. If I loved them to death, I'd still have filed the same exact objection. I suppose that large sum of money has clouded Mr. Price's ability to deal with logic and common sense. Business is business and my job as a business owner is to protect my business and my employees. My personal feelings aren't what makes a decision, but if I get to feel a little better as a side bonus, good for me. I do business every day with people I don't like -- including one of Nucor's principal opponents in this matter. Barry Porteous is one of my least favourite people in the industry because he's a hypocrite, but we buy from his company in spite of it, because my job is to run my business regardless of my personal feelings -- and whatever I think of him, PFC is a good vendor most of the time. That, Mister Price, they don't teach in Law School. It's how one was brought up: it's called doing the right thing. I am just ever so pleased you told me you read my blog because I am enjoying this.

Lastly, the letter from IFI Morgan, it amuses me. A number of those words are my words in the letter I sent to them (and other vendors). They added and changed some things and sent it out to their customers. Why? They're defending their business as any good business owner would. Good for them.

I will go on with my life and after my final corporate objection, I'm done. Until the NIFS/West show where Nucor will have a booth. Where I will very likely give them a piece of my mind. I can't believe they're dumb enough to actually show up at a show full of people who will be fresh off the decision of the ITC. They're asking for the large number of lectures they are sure to get. Formal boycotts are still legal as a means of protest. Boy, this could be fun. And judging by the number of people I've spoken to, I bet it would cost them far more business than they could ever hope to gain. I'll have to think about that because I have to do that as an individual.

Special thanks to my various friends who are attorneys who helped me with the Nucor posts. There are good attorneys, friendly attorneys, and even average attorneys. But, you know, there's one in every group. World's a big place and I don't have to like everyone in it. But I'm thinking this guy and Michael Yormark would get along great. I should put them in touch.

Oh Damn

2009-10-18T19:59:00.000-04:00

I wish this cough would go away. It makes me hurt. Dry, hacky, and makes my stomach and back muscles hurt.

Maury shared this commercial with me. It will never even be considered to air in the US. The site's in French, but the ad is in English, though you don't have to speak a word of any language to understand it. It's almost entirely without words.The ad is from 1992. It's just too much for the Puritan American audience. But I laughed.

Today began with breakfast followed by a tour of the Sunrise Swap Shop because the morning's temperature was in the upper 50s so it was a nice day to do so for a change. We skipped the "dollar store" sections which are full of shit and concentrated on the people selling old crap. Tons of computers older than dirt in obviously poor shape, a large number of records were available (those are the 12" black CDs if you don't remember what a record is), and one guy had a large collection of FACTORY SEALED 8-tracks. I almost bought the Robert Plant one on principal. There was an unusual amount of (overpriced) Panther stuff too.

Swang by Best Buy with Timmy to play with laptops some more. I really need to get one before the end of the month. Time's a wastin' on this project. Once I have it, I need to create multiple user accounts (outside sales, purchasing, office staff, and executive), then install OpenOffice and a mail client on all of them and configure everything. I need it for my trade show. I'll have to keep this one locked up.

Went and picked up this year's season ticket holder gift which was a tailgate chair. (Like this but for our team). Speaking of Panther chairs, this is awesome. We ran into Vanessa who I've not seen in awhile and that was a nice surprise. I was going to do 'photo with the mascot' but it was the only thing we wanted to do that had a line. Feh.

Afterwards, it was open skate for season ticketholders. They skipped this for the past two years and that rankled me greatly but it returned. We were supposed to get 1hr (3pm to 4pm) on the ice. The good news was they let us out there a half-hour early so we got 90 minutes of skating, but the bad news was they didn't clean the ice first and there was a pick-up hockey game before us so the ice was shit.

There was no supervision which, in theory is nice, but there were a number of kids throwing snowballs, two playing Frisbee with each other, one kid with a stick and puck, and two others playing with pucks. That made the skating hazardous. We did get to sit on the player home and away benches as well as walk to the locker room door for photos, though the door was locked.

It was fun. Afterwards, we were done for the day and I came home. I made dinner -- enough for two nights -- and I am disappointed in the results. Fail. And it's on for tomorrow too.

Where The Wild Things Are: Spoiler Free Review

2009-10-17T20:46:00.000-04:00

So, I finally went to bed around 630 or so this morning (see post from earlier today) and was up around 830am. Today was Karen day. We went to Einstein Bagels for breakfast and got what we deserved: shit on a plastic tray. We knew what to expect, we went anyway, we deserved it.

First up was "Where The Wild Things Are" at the Aventura AMC which Liz was going to attend with us, but she was detained with some unspecified top-secret government project so we went without her. I must remind you from my previous posts that, at first, I was angry they were going to ruin another childhood memory, and then after I begin to see previews I changed my mind and grew hopeful and excited. I went in with High Hopes, something that is dangerous as hell.

It started, and for the first ten minutes or so I had this rapidly sinking feeling of "oh, shit, they really have ruined a childhood memory" followed by "I bet those mediocre reviews were right" and such. While I've not read any of the reviews purposely, they have been mixed by all accounts. About fifteen minutes in, I was sure this was going to suck. First, though, a brief kudos for Max Records, who plays Max; he deserves an Oscar for his performance. Seriously. No matter what you think, this kid is phenomenal: he nailed it flawlessly. He looks like Max, acts like Max, talks like Max, he is Max. He's the Max I remember from my childhood. Perfect.

The all-star (voice) cast is enjoyable. And once Max enters that world, the movie becomes magical, and amazing. And damn near flawless. Is it totally true to the book? No. Neither was Lord of the Rings as Peter Jackson saw it, but there were few detractors there and there should be none here either. This is that good. It is visually awe-inspiring, emotionally draining, dark, scary, happy, and every other emotion. It is not a children's movie by any measure, but it's a movie about all children. There are many metaphors, perhaps allegories. The adults will get that. The kids will like this film but it's not for them and yet it is. You will become emotionally involved with Max and his adventures. You will be angry at his petulance, marvel at his ingenuity, and feel many of the emotions he does -- and be repelled by others. But you will understand.

In spite of the irritating opening, I am going to give this movie a perfect 10 out of 10. This will definitely be one of the top twenty movies I've ever seen. This is LOTR class film making. This film will be the next Wizard of Oz. That film was also not for children but about children. This movie will be a classic. You can etch my prediction into granite tablets: that's how sure I am.

I did spot two minor continuity gaffes, and this isn't a spoiler unless you're one of those rare people who hasn't read the 368 word book. The monsters are still calling Max "King" but in one quick scene KW (I believe) calls him "Max" except she doesn't know his name yet. The only other gaffe I spotted is minor: the dirt spots on his costume and face move about.

After the movie was over -- Karen cried near the end, BTW -- we texted Liz for the next part of our adventure but she bailed on that for the same top-secret government project she was still working on. Liz had previously Twittered about an art exhibit at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale (part of the Nova Southeastern University) and the photo below caught my eye and made me want to go.

Click on the picture to go to the original

I really enjoyed the exhibit and that piece was definitely my favourite but there was some other really good pieces too. As in any exhibit, there were some sucky ones too. And on the way out, you will find Christ. (If you go, you'll know what I mean.) This really reminded me of a gallery at the Tate Modern and it really helped make the day just a little better than it already was.

Afterwards, it was close to dinner time and we ended up at Big Louie's Pizza (or some name close to that) in the same strip mall as John's beloved RadioActive Records.

I also found out that Apple does business leases on MacBook Pros. So there may be a new Mac laptop in my company's future instead of a Wintel after all. This pleases me.

I am really, really tired but am holding out for 10pm or so before I go to bed.

Why am I up at 348am?

2009-10-17T05:58:00.000-04:00

OK, it's 452am as I start this post, because before hand I

checked my credit card receipts against my statements,
made a post over at the Panthers Hockey Message Boards,
filed my medical receipts for the week,
had a drink of water (~~twice~~ 4x),
turned on the TV looking for something and found the last bit of an episode of the Office (UK),
posted to Facebook
exchanged IMs with Suzie-Q.

So, on to the blog post. The Panthers won, which pleased me, almost as much as the fact I felt healthy enough to go to the game. They were lucky because the first period they didn't even show up. Stupid Panthers. Before the game we three (John, Liz, me) ate at Stevie-B's and it was tasty and as a bonus was real, solid food. Stevie-B's does kill you on the add-ons to the food. So while nothing on the menu is expensive (everything we had was $8 or less) it was still over $65 plus tip for three of us. I hate nickel-and-diming like that.

I got home from the hockey game and took my temperature -- 99ish which is just about right. Took a nice, hot, scalding shower because my muscles really hurt from all the hacking. I'm still hacking. Sometime in the small hours -- the early part of the 3am block somewhere -- I woke up to pee. With all the liquid I've been drinking since I got sick, this is not an uncommon occurrence. I got back into bed. I realized some time later I was wide awake. So I got up and did the above errands.

So I figured I should blog because, you know, there are a quarter of a million of you just dying to know what time I wake up to pee. I get e-mail about that all the time. If you believe that, you're an idiot :)

There's more on the Nucor case. Lots more. First of all, I'd love to go on about most of it, but for legal reasons I can't at this time. I am going to send a formal complaint to the ITC and US Department of Commerce and ask this man's testimony be stricken from the record due to apparent perjury and am also pursuing a libel case against him and will also find the state in which he's registered with the bar and request he be disbarred. There is a national publication in which he said something untrue that not only offended me, I can prove it was a lie, he could have and should have known it was a lie, and was just too damned lazy to bother to check -- much like all of his other research. If anyone out there knows how to find out where an attorney is registered with the bar and how to file a formal complaint (as an individual and not a company), I would love to know. (A perjury charge in front of a Federal inquiry is absolutely, positively grounds for being disbarred, and since i have a copy of the testimony, a magazine article, both with the same approximate statement, the magazine has already apologized, I have concrete proof, I'm itching to do the right thing.)

The Nucor thing has been admitted but is panelled for review with a decision date of 6 November. There was a lot said, some of it good, some of it not so good. They were clearly surprised at the number of objections. Some heavy hitters spoke out. I've also received two letters of thanks from Chinese / Taiwanese suppliers saying I'm a hero to the industry. One was from someone we do business with, the other from someone I never heard of. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. What I am very pleased at, though, is the amount of ill-will Nucor has made for itself. They are going to be unpleasantly surprised at how many people will not buy from them even if it means paying more money to go elsewhere. They will have spent a great deal of money to help their competition. It shows, of course, that some very large companies don't think very hard and, as I alluded to in the company's formal complaint, if you don't know your customer, you will not succeed.

It's funny. Interstate is a very low key company and we never make waves, just trying to do our thing, make our customers happy, and so on. We rarely make public waves like this. In fact this is only the second time. The first was a public safety issue where we ultimately were able to have a product we felt unsafe recalled nationwide over the manufacturer's objections. It took lawyers and lots of money to have it done, but people's lives were in immediate danger. This is just as important, thousands of American jobs are in danger, maybe tens of thousands., entire companies are in danger, but apparently Nucor feels their jobs are more important than our jobs. We (and I) beg to differ.

(Oh, and a special fuck-off to Phil at Nova who outright plagiarized my formal objection to the ITC and literally copied the entire first draft of the letter typos and all and filed it. He got an incendiary letter from me as well.)

Enough about Nucor. I really want to say a lot, but I simply can't right now. Please be patient. If you are interested in the public transcripts, filings, and whatnot. I have all of it already. If you email me at work, I will share with you all the public documents (boring as hell) to save you the trouble of requesting them and such.

I took my temperature just now (518am) and it's 98.1 which is too low but I'm feeling okay. I'm just not tired. Which sucks.

This weekend proves to be exciting if I can keep up the pace. Saturday -- oh, right, later this morning -- I am planning to see Wild Things with Karen and Liz. Then off to the art museum because they have an awesome looking exhibit (Liz sent me a picture and I was, like, I must see this.)

Sunday AM I am going to the flea market with Timmy. Then I am going to go to the arena to pick up my season ticket holder gift which is, allegedly, a lawn chair. They also have open skate for those who participated in the Fanatic Early Renewal package. So that will be my attempt at exercise.

A few friends are ignoring me, and I am sad over it. When I have more strength, I suppose I'll have to deal with that.

I'm suddenly very itchy and have been drinking tons and tons of water since I work up.

I still get regular blog hits for "Rock Beach Grill" -- the restaurant I reviewed some time back. You know, one would figure they'd have contacted me to at least apologize for my experience and hope I'd write something nice. No, they'd rather close to 3,000 people so far read that review and leave it as one of the top matches at both Yahoo and Google. BTW, if you're ever in Pembroke Pines, don't eat there unless you like spiders in your drinks and then still get charged for those drinks (see review).

Lastly, and it's almost 6am, so I should try for a nap, I ate at Tony Roma's again recently. It was not my choice as I vowed to never return because Tony Roma's sucks donkey balls (link to review). Two and a half years since my initial visit and five attempts to get a reply (documented all over my blog) have yielded not even the courtesy of a phone call. But, a client insisted so we went. I am pleased to report that (A) the service was horrific, (B) the food was horrible, (C) the restaurant wasn't clean, (D) they still charge for the bread. Now, "B" concerns me here because that's never been a problem. How the hell does a rib place screw up the ribs. I had St Louis and my client had Baby Backs. Two different kinds of ribs. They were not moist, not fall off the bone, and quite nasty. Neither of us finished. The client has vowed to never return. Because I am very friendly with this client I was able to get away with an "I told you so" :)

Yeah, let's try bed. I expect to fail, still.

All Sorts Of News

2009-10-15T18:29:00.001-04:00

First, a quick health update. My fever is finally gone after maxing out at a little over 103. Not the highest I've ever had, but still very unpleasant. That means I am not contagious any more. However, you are contagious before you know you have it. If you were in contact with me Sunday or Monday be alert for a dry, hacking cough. If you get one, go to your doctor immediately and do not wait. It'll keep you in better shape. I still hurt everywhere (muscle aches and brutal headaches) and while the cough itself doesn't hurt, it's wreaking havoc on my throat and stomach muscles.

I am on disc 3 of the Beatles Remastered (Stereo) box set. I'm not listening in any particular order, but I am enjoying them. Some songs sound damned near identical, others are vastly different. I can only encourage all Beatles fans to rush out and buy this overpriced box set.

I'm sure you all heard by now the sad story of the kid who jumped into his parents' hot air balloon which wasn't properly tethered and it sailed off at altitudes of over 8000 feet before crashing some sixty miles away. Live video was show all over the national news. The boy's body wasn't found at the crash site, leading them to speculate he may have lost consciousness and fallen out somewhere along the way.

And I present, courtesy of Jose, a video of the best hockey goal ever. He's nine years old but plays on a team of twelve-year-olds because he's so good. The next Wayne Gretzky and you saw it here (there) first. I can promise you that goalie will have nightmares over this one.

My friend Richard Meeks was filmed as part of a documentary on Dungeon Masters. A small segment was filmed at my house a few years back. I'm hoping it was edited out. Anyway, the trailer is now available and it was even a selection at the Toronto Film Festival.

I am presently doing laundry because based on the amount of flu-caused sweating, they've either got to be burned or washed.

And a last-minute addendum (Thanks Mark Fischel, who wasn't sure if it was satire or not): Some twat posted a long lament about Rush not being allowed to own an NFL team. I read it several times, sure the person posting it must have been jesting. No, he's serious. To which I say: You have no right to own a team in any league. That decision is the sole provenance of the league owners. (Who, if you will check, are almost are Republicans.) They do not wish to bring further embarrassment upon the league. Rush's mouth put him right in the grave he dug for himself. Let me assure you Rush is not me because he embarrasses me. He's an affront to all intelligent people of either party. I wish he'd take his ball and go home like the child he is. Or, to be childish like Rush is, sod off and bugger off.

H1N1

2009-10-14T18:55:00.000-04:00

Anyone want it? I don't.

I took my first sick day from work in years. I have a fever (102 and every single symptom on the list. I spent most of the day in bed and I hurt like hell. The headache is the worst, and every single drug I've tried as failed to stop it.

The symptoms of the H1N1 Flu virus in people are similar to the symptoms of common seasonal flu. The most common H1N1 symptoms include:

Fever – particularly a fever of over 100 degrees (102)
Sore throat
Cough (dry hacky)
Chills and fatigue (yes)
Body aches (joint pain)
Headache (brutal)
Occasionally, vomiting and diarrhoea (projectile)

I've been in bed most of the day. That's probably good on one hand. I'm sweating constantly -- sometimes cold and sometimes hot. Anyway, I'm cranky. Now you know why.

Hack, Wheeze, Sniffle

2009-10-13T19:00:00.000-04:00

As you may have possibly gathered from the subject line I'm sick. It started last night after 8pm when I developed a dry, hacking cough. Because there was no good reason for it, and I felt otherwise fine, I assume it wasn't a big deal and just an irritated throat. I took some Hydromet before bed and that was that. I slept like shit -- because I was sick and for no other reason -- because the hacking was joined by sniffling. I woke up, or more accurately got out of bed, and went to work not feeling particularly bad. However, over the course of the day it continued to get worse, the cough being the worse as it remains a dry hacking cough, and I'm sure it's caused by the post-nasal drip associated with most colds. On the record, I'm blaming Jose for this. The fact that I've had no contact with him in months is just a minor detail. (The real answer is my Dad went to work sick and wouldn't go home, and has infected quite a few people. I know it'll get worse for the next few days and last a little over a week. Thanks, Dad.)

Today I met with House Representative Eddy Gonzalez at our office. I would like to thank Alex for facilitating this meeting. I explained our position in my own words, reminded him that Nucor seems to forget that they'll be costing far more American jobs than they'll be preserving. I presented him with letters from our company and several of our competitors. He's promised to do what he can to get this the attention it deserves with his colleagues and promised both letters and phone calls within 24 hours. I hope it works. If this thing passes without change, we'll reduce our workforce by at least 10% as soon as it goes into effect.

I am listening to the first CD in the Beatles Stereo Box Set which has finally arrived. I am enjoying it. I'll only listen to one or two tonight as I'm going to get in bed and watch the season finale of Hell's Kitchen. I'd read and listen to music after, but my eyes are too runny to read my new Terry Pratchett book. I've forgotten how short these early Beatles albums are. The sound on these is really awesome and you should definitely look into getting either the set, or at least scoring your favourite and comparing the results.

My awesome new hoodie from Zazzle has arrived. It'll make its debut in two weeks. This week at skating -- assuming I'm not too sick -- I'll be wearing my Panthers model since it's skate on home ice day. It's very cool and I've wanted one for some time but wasn't able to get my hands on one until this came out.

Red Priest is coming to Miami. They have shows the 16th and 17th. I am quite interested in going if I can find someone to go with. I saw them once in Brighton and they were awesome.

Oct 17 Miami, FL, USA
RED PRIEST Nightmare in Venice
St. Martha s Church, Miami Shores 7.30pm
www.saintmartha.tix.com

So if anyone's interested, send me an e-mail. This is very rare for them to be in the USA. If you want to go on the 16th, by all means do so. You should experience their enjoyable show. Details for the 16th are: Oct 16 Miami, FL, USA, RED PRIEST Masterclass, University of Miami.

I ate a leftover burger for dinner. I realize that wasn't the best choice, but it saved me from cooking and that was an awesome choice. I had some cantaloupe thereafter.

I want to continue to state that Delta remains a bunch of unreasonable and/or incompetent twits for continuing to argue with me over the 257 miles they rightly owe me. I just want to spread the irritation because I'm cranky today.

Lastly, at Mom's behest I called her property manager's office and gave them a piece of my mind. When I'm sick, that's not a whole lot. I hate getting involved in other people's disputes. Now I'm doubly irritated over a problem that's not mine. Anyway, she appears to be right so I hope my intervention helps. It's stories like this that give the whole lot the bad name they so richly deserve. As an officer of the HOA where I live, it's appalling how these organizations turn into little police states that often are destructive instead of constructive. When I first got on, we had a good board that slowly deteriorated as people worried about their personal interests over those of the community. If you're in Florida, here's who you complain to -- there's a complaint button at the bottom of the page.

Another Day, Another Dollar Less

2009-10-11T15:54:00.000-04:00

First up, mom had sent me this URL which I just now got around to checking. It's going to take you awhile to type everything in and you better have the label because you need proper spellings and dosages. However, what's cool about it is that it compares any known interactions, what other users report, and so on, There were nearly 1800 people who had similar drug combinations to mine and my results and symptoms (side effects) were right where they should be. It's not a medical diagnosis but it will tell you if something out of the ordinary is happening. Worth a look.

In the exciting news department, I slept. I went to bed around 1am Friday night. Slept through to 625am. That would be bad news in the past, but that's the most continuous sleep I've had in almost twelve weeks (3 months). Similar results Saturday. I hope this is a trend. Sadly, my neck continues to noticeably deteriorate. That's a project for later next week.

Special thanks to Van Murph -- blogger, pilot, legend, friend -- for getting me the Panther hoodie that was on clearance for $14.99. This will be put in use when the weather cools off. Right now it appears it may never happen. As you know, we've been breaking records here with mid-90s (F°) actual readings and triple digit heat index numbers. That isn't unusual in July and August, but it is for October. It's absolutely brutal.

Saturday was Opening Night for the Panthers, so our group of 12 was scheduled to meet at the Cheesecake Factory. It took them awhile to get our table together and, as it turned out, we were a party of ten since Joshua got a flat tire and couldn't make it. We had an enjoyable meal, except for John who experienced all the symptoms of food poisoning. It couldn't have been the entrée because Timmy had the same thing and he's fine. That means it was his soup (Cream of Chicken) or his beer. Liz and I both tasted his soup (yummy) but I don't think two teaspoons of it are enough. We went across the street and got really, really bad parking spots because we were running behind schedule. But I managed to find Murph and collect the aforementioned sweatshirt.

It appeared it was really crowded even though tickets were still available. It was not a sell out but it was pretty full -- maybe 17000 or so there. We took our traditional lap and everything is about the same, though apparently one advertiser (790 the ticket) had their concourse ad covered by a black curtain. Perhaps they didn't pay their bill? Amusing and stupid. As I said before, the prices were jacked up despite Yormark's promise to the contrary. While he never did get back to me, and I won't forgive his lying-ass for it, I did notice a few of my ideas implemented.

They added some new lower bowl LED matrix boards behind the end-zone decks the ~~Pole Cats~~ Ice Dancers perform on. I really liked them. I'm sure they'll end up having advertising but they didn't tonight. And better yet, the ~~Pole Cats~~ Ice Dancers were not dressed like hookers and were wearing team colours. While I am opposed to cheerleaders in hockey on principle, if they continue like this, I withdraw my objection. Of course, they came out on the ice and left a track of ~~hoof~~ heel prints that remained even after the Zamboni.

And WTF with out mascot (who we love) that still can't skate. Ever since they replaced the person inside the suit, he's not skated. He's a hockey mascot, he should skate. It's embarrassing. I've offered to teach him because it's so irritating to me.

It's time for NaNoWriMo and I am considering it. November is always so hard for me schedule wise, but I have an idea for a new novel. I'm still pretty crushed about the last one -- 30,000 words -- vanishing in the HD crash as I mentioned in a previous blog. But this might provide the motivation I need. I'm considering it. Plan two is to re-write one of my other novels and make it better. I like re-writing too, because I can expand upon things. I just feel it's time to do a new one. I've been toying with a murder mystery.

I've still been monitoring my inbound traffic and there are still lots of hits for the other Eric Seiden -- I get hits every single day looking for this guy. (The one who has the middle name Todd.) He's not very popular apparently. Most of those searches come in with the SEC tag which makes no sense because I never talk about the SEC except maybe in a football context.

I'm bored. Someone call and let's go to dinner. I'm sure by the time anyone reads this, it'll be too late.

A busy day

2009-10-09T18:16:00.000-04:00

First up, an update on the Nucor saga. Next week our State Representative is coming to have meeting with me at our office to see what we're about, why our industry is upset, and then to decide how involved he may get. I'm working on a presentation -- I'm missing that laptop right now, let me tell you. I'm leaving the date/time a secret until after the fact. I will report what I am allowed. Yay!

Second, this cool video is by way of Dan Haun. He posted it over on Facebook, not even knowing this is one of my favourite songs. This rendition is very unlike the original, but I like it. A lot.

I encourage you to take a watch. You can read about the song here. The original version is here until the studio has it pulled. (And don't panic. There's no message intended here other than I like the song.)

I will be picking up a copy of Playboy this coming month. Everyone's favourite yellow-skinned hottie is going to be on the cover. Yes, Marge Simpson will be in the current issue of Playboy. And I absolutely promise you, I am going to read the article. Really. Will I look at the other pages? I'll take the fifth :) The full news story is here courtesy of the AP.

Good luck the people injured at a Saint Louis Blues NHL game when the escalator was possessed by the devil and ate them. The AP story is here. I had to post this only because one doesn't read about escalator malfunctions very often which result in 13 injuries. Yes, hockey season has begun, and our home opener is tomorrow night.

Barack Obama, the president, won the Nobel Peace Prize today. Shocking really. I am an Obama supporter, fading, but still a supporter. The Peace Prize really ought to be awarded to someone who has done something for peace and he hasn't. Period. End of sentence. On the other hand, I get the fact that by simply replacing George "Moron" Bush as president, he's probably done more for peace than anyone else in the past eight years. He has changed the world view of our country back to what it was. Either way, kudos to Obama for donating his winnings to charity, and, sir, I do hope you actually do something worthy of this honour.

I have ordered a very awesome hoodie. I don't even wear hoodies, but it was so cool, I've always wanted one, and now they're finally for sale. I will post a picture of me wearing it when it arrives. Late next week I suppose. My Beatles boxed set has yet to arrive and I am anxious to have it.

Today was an important doctor's visit. Details available privately.

The Phantom Of The Opera Is Here (Again)

2009-10-08T22:33:00.000-04:00

Andrew Lloyd Webber is cashing in on the Phantom of the Opera juggernaut and has penned a sequel. I was on the fence when I first got wind of it. But speaking of wind, there was quite a bit when I heard it's set under Coney Island. No, really. I swear I am not making this up. I can assure you, I will not be first in line to see this new play. Or second. I will wait for someone I really trust to say it's good before I even consider it. Some things should not have sequels.(The hotlinks are to the NY Times and CBS News respectively.)

I have a horrible stomach ache which I must blame on dinner, I suppose. Sadly, I can't take anything for it due to various prescription interactions. I missed my doctor's call so will have to try again tomorrow to find out what medicine I can safely take.

The next story, also humorous, is the fact that the Internet in China is being brought to its knees by men searching for porn*, but not just any porn. In fact, Chinese men searching for a very particular sexual distraction indeed: Chako Paul City. Legend has it that Chako Paul City is in Sweden, and it is populated mainly by lesbians. I don't make this shit up, I just report it. The city doesn't exist, but the problem of all the men in China overwhelming Chinese ISPs is true. I laughed. Sue me.

And a special heartwarming story as well. I won't spoil it. Just go read it and look at the picture.

For you pet owners, here's a special link (from my mother) that you will find useful. It's a petition to sponsor a bill that will make your pet's medical expenses deductible just as your child's.

* Men searching for porn is not, by itself, a newsworthy story for obvious reasons.

Apple, Ghosts, MacBook vs MacBook Pro

2009-10-06T22:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Suzie-Q and Randy who came back with answers on the MacBook v MacBook Pro. Amazingly none of my local geek friends answered or knew the answers. Their answers -- not fact checked because I trust them -- are:

MacBook is less durable because it has a polycarbonate case versus the MacBook Pro which is solid aluminium -- that means the Pro is heavier
The Pro has a way better screen
The Pro has a way better touch pad in theory -- but this is zero issue because I hate touch pads and use a mouse and for me this is a minus as I need a less sensitive one when I do use one because my fat fingers have trouble with touch pads
The MacBook shares its RAM with both video and computing whereas the MacBook Pro has separate video memory
The MacBook gets better WiFi reception because the Pro's metal case interferes with the signal.
The Pro is lighter by about 1/2 pound and is a bit thinner (though slightly wider)
The Pro's battery last much longer, though on the downside it's integrated and not replaceable
The Pro has Firewire 800 not 400 but this isn't an issue for me
You can expend memory on the Pro but not the regular: but with 2GB standard, I think it's enough
The Pro is faster, but not by enough for anyone to care
There are some minor differences in what cables you have to use with various audio and video ports for hooking up external devices but this is not an issue as the purpose of this machine is for employees to take on business trips.

I'll probably wait until late in the month to decide, because I hear new models are coming out. It's damn likely, I'm going to be forced into buying a low priced Wintel machine anyway. So very sad, but I can understand.

Speaking of Apple, they withdrew from the US Chamber of Commerce over the USCC's environmental policies. The USCC is a very, very conservative organization whose goals are to further that of American business. While they try to appear progressive, they aren't. I know. Our company used to belong as well, but we left years ago because while it was good for our business: they lobbied hard for many things that benefited our company, I have to sleep at night and some of their policies were bothersome to me on a personal level. Unlike some companies, we actually care about our employees. The USCC's website will tell you more about them. They do some really good things like fighting for lower health care costs, but since I have a say in the running of our company, I like to make sure we do the right thing even if it isn't always the right thing for the company.

Lastly, I'm going to share a story with you about something that happened yesterday. I wasn't going to post it, because nobody will believe me. Hell, I wouldn't believe me. I'm sure you all remember my blog posts about Scooter -- I am still sad -- and many of you local people had the honour of meeting her. Some of you will remember coming home and finding a roll of paper towels or toilet paper shredded to within an inch of its life. This is a common form of cat entertainment. The cat gets entertained whilst spinning and shredding the roll, and then again when the cat's servant (some of you may use the word owner, but I assure you that is not the correct word) comes home and has to clean up a ton of paper that is strewn about. They watch you and laugh.

The night before last, I got up at around 3am to go to the bathroom. Yes, I know you care about that. Normally I don't turn the light on the in the bathroom. I mean, I know where everything is and how it works. I felt something a little slippery when I went in and thought fuck, something's broken. I turned on the light. The roll of toilet paper in my bathroom was partially shredded. I live alone and nothing with claws lives in my house. Yeah, cue the Twilight Zone music. That's twice Scooter has made her presence known (14 May 2009 post. Item #2) and both times involving my bathroom. Which is odd, since she didn't come into my bathroom very often. I pretty much had written off the first incident, this one, I don't think so. I cleaned up the mess, and it was still there in the morning, so it wasn't a waking dream or anything.