Guy playing "Subdivisions" on electronics (Yamaha, maybe?)
Read more!Thursday, December 22, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Friday, November 04, 2005
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Obligatory impotent frustration over something not all that important
After a couple of days of being pestered about it, I finally caved in Monday night and ordered a halloween costume for my daughter from www.frightcatalog.com.
We were really careful to select an item that they indicated was "in stock" (see where this is going?), and, even though their standard shipping charts showed it would arrive by Saturday with their normal ground shipment method, I specified second-day FedEx shipment, just to buy some breathing room.
I was emailed a receipt promptly, which included this:
--------------------------------
Your Order Date is: 10/24/2005
Items Shipping From Warehouse 1 (Worcester, MA):
Item # Name Status Qty Price Total
1104002 Ghostly Gal Costume In Stock 1 $34.94 $34.94
--------------------------------
For most things I order on-line, a get an acknowledgment of shipment, usually with a tracking number. When I hadn't received any such thing by Wednesday morning, I grew suspicious, and started trying to call them.
I tried three different times during the day, several hours apart, but they never answered the phone.
At close-of-business, I sent an email requesting order status and a tracking number.
I hadn't received any reply by late this morning, so I tried the phone again. This time, I got a busy signal, so I kept trying, and, eventually, got through, and got an answer.
I was told that the item is on back-order, and that the reason my order wasn't met by an in-stock item was that I was "outraced" by people issuing purchases at the same time as me. Great. So, I canceled the order and said goodbye.
Then I went and checked the web sight again. What do you know? It *still* says that item is in-stock!
So I called (and called until I got through), and got a different operator this time.
Well, the explanation became that they have a glitch in the website, and they are working to fix it.
Then why did my receipt say "in stock"? Same glitch. Why didn't they answer my email? They are really busy this holiday season. Well, no shit, Sherlock. Maybe you should stop taking orders?
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
Daylight Saving Time in Indianapolis
I think it's all official now. We will be leaving our clocks alone on Sunday, October 30, which will put us on Eastern Standard Time. We will stay with the Eastern Time Zone on April 2, 2006, by moving our clocks forward one hours.
Read more!Sunday, October 23, 2005
The Old Negro Space Program - this is an amazingly funny video
I'm going to try to figure out how to put it on a DVD.
Read more!Friday, October 21, 2005
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Friday, September 02, 2005
Superstition
I just heard a story about an episode in which a mother did an adult daughter a generous kindness, and, reasonably soon thereafter, won an amount of money, playing bingo, fairly near the expense incurred.
(I heard the story from the daughter, for what it's worth.)
The mother attributed the windfall to "God's reward", considering it a literal payback for having done the kindness with no expectations.
The daughter was pleased about this, and considered it a good thing that someone would believe they had been the recipient of the favor of a invisible, benevolant, omniscient, omnipotent, supernatural being for having done a clearly selfless, benevolant thing.
Hereafter, the invisible, benevolant, omniscient, omnipotent, supernatural being will be refered to as "Dude".
I prefer not to interpret things in such a way. I'm leery of picking some two circumstances, events, occurences, whatever, that have no identifiable, provable, repeatable connection,
and claiming a supernatural causality between them.
How does she "know" that the one thing caused the other? What makes her "right"? Do I have the latitude to declare that any two such events in my own life are causally connected by means of Dude? (I invite you to invent your own absurd examples; they are surely myriad.)
Moreover, I have a distaste for taking any *singular* event and determining that the fact that the event occurred must play some meaningful role vis a vis Dude.
Something extraordinarily good happens, and people give praise to Dude, and hold it up as proof of their supernatural system of belief.
Something extraordinarily bad happens, and people explain that Dude works in mysterious ways, and Dude needed this person in his service after death.
Or, worse, they explain how Dude was punishing this person for something.
This is a recurring theme in my life, and I don't mean just observing this behavior in others and feeling superior and contemptuous.
I mean, when I encounter a foul turn, misfortune, I'm aware of a mental mechanism that tries to determine what I am being punished for, so that I don't do that again, which is not at all the same thing as examining the situation to determine what the true, provable, cause of this is. Maybe it's an native, human instinct, maybe it was "learned" in, but it's wrong.
Sometimesm things just happen, folks.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Lapti Nek
A couple of years ago, my friend Jim (maybe yours, too) put together a three-disk set of mix CDs. The last song on the "Sea Life" disk was listed as only as a "surprise". I really liked the song, but never did know who or what it was.
That was also one of the songs that grew on my daughter from those disks. Recently, she even mentioned on a couple of occasions that it might be fun to use as a dance number.
During the Independance Day vacation that my family took at a wonderful "cabin" (really, pretty sweet digs) on the north edge of Georgia, my sister happened to hear the tune, and wondered aloud what language it was in.
It had never occured to me that it wasn't in English, really, but I've been listening much more closely since then, and just can't make out any of the lyrics.
So today, I IMed Jim, and asked him. Since it had been so long since he made the disks, he wasn't sure he could recall, so we had to do some back and forth before we were sure we were talking about the same song.
Well, wonder no more. The song is Lapti Nek, from Return of the Jedi. The language is, get this Huttese. Go figure. Mister meddle seems to have stricken it from existence as best he could; it isn't on the newer soundtrack.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Mild Drama with Air Travel
Now I'm trying to get someone on the phone to help me get the credit applied.
My first call was to their automated customer service number.
I navigated the phone tree until I determined that
1) there was no way to get my credit in the menu system
2) there was no way to get to a human in the menu system
My next call was "to purchase a ticket within U.S. and Canada.
After plodding through a few menu steps, my cell phone dropped
the call and flashed "CALL NOT COMPLETED". wtf.
So I tried again. This time, I actually managed to get a human on the phone.
Oh. My. God. This wasn't broken English.
It was, like...I had walked into a restaurant in a non-English speaking country,
nowhere near a tourist area, and I had caught some poor waiter flat-footed,
who had knowledge of no more than 3 words of English. (I've done this.)
I'm not kidding. Eventually, Habib passed my call to someone else.
She spoke perfect English, understood what I asked, and said she would
transfer me to the right place.
Click-chirp-click "We are sorry, your call did not go through." Click.
That's when I figured I'd start to chronical this sequence, in case it gets any better.
What's my next move?
I think I'll see if their websight has a way to interrogate for this info.
Ya, ya, I shoulda done this first.
Place ticket number in form, select "check on refund" radio button...
"
We apologize for any inconvenience but in order for US Airways to provide
you with the most accurate information available the status database
is currently being updated.
Please try your request again during the hours listed below.
Refunds Inquiry:
*Sunday through Friday - 2:30 AM to 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
*Saturday - 2:30 AM to 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
"
Ok, now I'm going to call the refund toll free line.
Ok, after the part about begging you to go to their website, or use the automated options, I get:
"If you would like to speak to a representative about a refund,
please have your thirteen digit ticket number, beginning with oh one three, and press '2'"
beep.
"Our office is closed. Our hours are blah blah blah."
I'll try again tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Circumventing the Oligarchy
I would like to participate in a project that brings recorded music to the masses in a more ethical manner. I think that the current dominant system is terribly exploitive of both the artist and the listener. I will add more thoughts later, but I'm at work now...
I'm at a point where multiple threads of concern/interest of mine are sort of converging. The link from the title is to the "business aims" page of a business concern created by Robert Fripp, the longtime guitarest in the many iterations and formations of the progressive rock group, King Crimson.
Right now, I am employed at a Linux-centric firm. The details aren't really important here; I certainly may elaborate on what we do and what I do in another post. The relevance here is that Linux is an open source project, the full explanation of which I'm not sure I want to attempt here...
Let's see, I need to talk about "Courtney Does the Math" to outline how horribly the industry exploits the artists; price fixing, wherein the industry exploits the end product consumer; the evils of the RIAA, etc...
I'm not quite sure where I am headed with this yet. More later.
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3918234
Monday, April 25, 2005
How you reckon I stumbled onto this?
I like to comb around ebay now and then, and I encountered one of this guy's instruments while looking for other touchstyle guitars.
Wanna see some really realy pretty guitars? Well, do ya?
Look at some of these: http://www.godinguitars.com/godinproductlistingp.htm
I had heard of them before; I think Robert Fripp has played their Roland-ready models before, but I stumbled on a particularly nice one on ebay, as well.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Thank you WSJ for the wonderful advice
I posted what follows in a discussion thread about the linked column.
I observed afterward that Gerstein worked for Lieberman's campaign as a strategist.
That's rich. First off, I would hardly look to the WSJ editorial staff for people who "have a finger on the pulse" of the American cultural tos and fros. There is a reason that the fringe right considers even the WSJ *news* division to have a liberal bias (all those pesky facts are pretty inconveniant to the cause), while holding up the editorial staff as reasonable, balanced, and insightful. They drank the same PNAC kool-aid.Secondly, imagine the trojan horse generosity of this thinly veiled 2nd ring of hell (around Wolfowitz, et. al.) offering their brilliant political insight to an organization whose demise they would greet with a glee usually reserved for, say, something like total elimination of the federal mimimum wage law, all OSHA enforcement, and all industrial environmental regs at the same time (considering that the former event would surely lead to all of the former, and then some).Yes, now that The Hammer has finally, in the court of public opinion, become the albatross around their necks that he should have been from the moment he ascended to the leadership of their party (and, yes, it is their party, don't pretend otherwise), they seek desperately to make the most prominent public face of the opposition someone who is just as divisive, and will drive away centrist (read: idiots who don't pay attention) in droves.The breathtaking element of this attempted stunt is that every lauditory syllable that they present about the junior senator from New York is true, and always has been, even when they have been part of the band of jackals who demonized her in the past. She has always been "pro-family". She has always championed initiatives to protect and nurture children. The trouble is, she provided the rabid, ranting right with things like the catch phrase "it takes a village", and they have successfully characterized that as a code for allowing the federal government into your household to dictate your child-rearing methods.That's the trouble with the lemmings that follow the flutes of the far right: they comprehend about as much discussion as can be fit on a bumper sticker, and they are almost that deep.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
An idea what I do for a living
Specifically, Ian's posting of today (April 14) lays out the details of what we have been hashing through for the past month or so. Exciting times, indeed.
Read more!And now, your moment of Glen
Compare and contrast:
"It puts the lotion on its skin."
and
"He never heard of corduroy."
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Local Righty Radio
Sometimes I have to give the enemy a listen. On this particular day, garrison and his guest adopted a posture about circumstances in Iraq that are quite telling.
Things are going swimmingly in Iraq. To the extent that there are "problems", they can be traced to "bad guys" coming in from Iran and Syria. The fraction of the active troops that are actually Iraqi nationals is steadily increasing, in fact, almost half of the active military there is now Iraqi. They are *this* close to having a self-sustaining democracy, but, surprise surprise surprise, they are just going to need help policing their borders.
There you go, write it down. The next invasion is being slated, but it's going to start as a mission to "help Iraq protect its borders".
Never mind the (increasing mountain of) inconsistancies. Preinvasion? Iraq was *supplying* terrorists. Immediately post invasion? All that terrorist activity is aby Iraqi nationals, and we have them on the run. They are desperate. Now we have the new spin, and the blood-sucking bastards from the PNAC know they can count on the willfully short memories of enough of the American electorate to pull off yet another pack of lies.
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