Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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preoccupation


After nearly a week of pulling out all the stops trying to get uncorrupted data off my failed RAID array, I finally exhausted all my ideas and gave up. Five years of digital photos, three years of taxes, all the prank phone call compilations I’d been working on, three years of website backups, all the scans for my bootleg collection, my huge collection of MAME and NES ROMs… ugh. At least I had a backup of my music… I don’t think I’d be caught without that. All the CDs I’ve ripped, and my non-ripped collection as well; I’d’ve possibly had a stroke were all that lost. When it comes down to it, I could care less about everything but the photos. I can replace MAME ROMs, re-input prank phone calls, download bootleg scans, etc. But man, had I lost my music collection… that’d be something to be really upset about. As it is, I’m pretty bummed about losing five years of pictures – and Sharaun’s more than “pretty bummed” about it too. Owell, I’m up and running a brand new 750GB RAID5 array now – here’s to avoiding tragedy in the future. I keep hoping I’ll run across a long-forgotten DVD backup of our photos somewhere…

I just have nothing to write, I think because I’ve been single-tracked trying to get this data back – and we’ve had company in town. I think things’ll get better after tomorrow, when it’s just us and the baby… but for now, I have absolutely nothing.

Goodnight.

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revenge of the axiom

Fix this for me, I'll pay you.
I knew it, I knew it. As soon as we’ve got a nice little for-when-the-baby-comes savings built up in the bank, Dave’s First Axiom of Finance strikes: There’s no such thing as extra money.

First, the garage door breaks on Tuesday, and I was waiting until the weekend to fix it. That means Sharaun and I had both been parking in the driveway for a few nights, Friday night being one of them. Saturday morning, Sharaun had yet another all-day teachermoot which left the king alone in his castle. As she was leaving, she noticed my car door was cracked. Sure enough, I had been liberated of my stereo. Not sure if I left my truck unlocked, but it sure appears that way – that or the efficient pilferers made some non-intrusive entry; my money’s on unlocked. This latest thieving marks the fourth time Sharaun or I have had our cars rifled and lightened by crooked fingers – and the second time that it’s happened right in our own driveway. I hate the feeling you get when someone jacks your stuff… hate it. Sure, some might say it’s my fault, if indeed I did leave the doors unlocked. Bullshit. It’s not my “fault.” I may have invited it, making it unnecessarily easy, but it’s sure not my “fault” that someone can’t fight their klepto urges.

I did spend a few hours over the weekend tearing the thing apart, attempting to ditch the antiquated idea of a head-unit and integrate my iPod directly into the speakers via the existing amp. Then I remembered that the amp was bad, and I was only using it as a bridged-mono “crutch” to push the subwoofer – so that plan bombed. So now I’m gonna roll her up to the stereo place and let them have their way with it. I’m still planning to get rid of the head unit and go iPod-only into the speakers, I’m just gonna let them work their magic with those instructions rather than wracking my brain over the wiring, input levels, gain, and all that other associated crap. Shooting for an un-thievable setup where I can just take the iPod with me, leaving not but wires in the vehicle to be stolen.

Second (those two paragraphs we’re the “first”), Sharaun’s car started making the most awful noise on Sunday. It’s something that I’ve been hearing, albeit having to strain, for a while now – but that she’s dismissed as me being over-sensitive to noise (which, in fairness, I am). Now, however, the noise is indisputable – so loud it almost drowns out the stereo at high speed. Whatever it is, it sure doesn’t sound good. Thankfully, I remembered at the last minute that we’re still under warranty – I’d pushed the salesman for the 5yr/65k at no cost and won. We dropped it off late Sunday night, and’ve got my fingers crossed for something covered… otherwise I fear the cost of repair will be directly proportional to the volume of that nasty sound.

But folks, all is not woe and misery… nothing a few hundred dollars won’t fix, at least. And, while it’s fun to complain for comedic value – it’s also annoying.

OK yeah, you have to watch this: Fear of Girls, a free film on Google Video about table-top RPG players… hilarious (via MeFi).

Out.

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shooting sharks

An ongiong parody.
Near 10pm Monday evening, sitting in the “computer room” for a change, since Sharaun’s holed up in here working on progress reports for her class or something. She can’t concentrate with music, so I’ve got the iPod on shuffle in the “blues” genre – really been getting off on listening to blues standards lately, maybe it’s the weather. Still need to do the dishes and put some coffee in the pot for the morning… too late already. I guess today’s thing is a hodgepodge of little one-off paragraphs that didn’t fit anywhere else. Oh, and you may notice the larger-than-average post-accompanying pictures of late, just roll with it, it won’t be forever – I’m having fun.

Even though some may say it’s too early to call, I think we may have a frontrunner for media-overdose of 2006: the trapped miner. 2003 it was shark attacks, 2004 was attractive white girls going missing (extra bonus if they were pregnant), hurricanes ruled 2005, and it’s looking like ’06 may shape up to be a cave-in frenzy. If only we could get some attractive, pregnant white woman trapped in a caved-in mine, with rescuers unable to reach her due to a massive hurricane which has picked up sharks from the ocean and is raining them over the West Virginian countryside… CNN’s head would asplode. Really, I just wrote that whole paragraph because I pictured swirling clouds “shooting out” hungry sharks and cracked up at a vision of them hurtling towards earth, gaping razor-mouth first. Hahaha. Shooting sharks.

Do you know that nowhere on all my DirecTV channels is there any instance of Gilligan’s Island? Are you for real? We have 300 some-odd channels, each with 24hrs of programming, and not a single one can show an hour a week of a classic like Gilligan’s Island? What the heck am I paying for if I can’t even watch Gilligan’s Island?

Before I leave, I wanted to share a little thing that happened to me a few weeks ago. I wrote about it then (post 611, this is 621), but binned it for the next God entry instead of pushing it through. Anyway, I basically cut and pasted it out of that work-in-progress God entry here: Friday night I had some beer. I was driving home afterward (buzzed driving is drunk driving), listening to Sufjan’s Seven Swans. The song “The Transfiguration” has always been a favorite or mine, and this particular night I was extra struck by its religious imagery. At this point in the old entry, I quoted the lyrics in full. Rather than do that here, I just wanted to link to it so you can hear for yourself. It’s a great tune (if you like the trademark super-super-super gay Sufjan sound), so don’t let the God-talk scare you off.

OK whatever goodnight.

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all the way to the horizon

Never coming down.
Today on the way home for lunch (baby-budget, remember), I was listening to Menomena’s new three-track (thematic, if not full-blown “concept”) EP/album, Under An Hour (which it is, just barely, at 54min). Of the three tracks, which are each near the 20min mark, I’ve rarely gotten to the final one. So… liking the first two tracks so much, I decided to flip direct to the last track. Turns out, the third track begins with a buzzy droning sound, completely unaccompanied; something like a small plane sounds like from inside the cockpit.

Wait, if you skipped that last paragraph because it started out about music, go back – I’m actually going somewhere with this and needed the music to set it up. Go ahead, I’ll give you a second…

Anyway, with the windows down and that drone droning on in my ears, I started to imagine I was in a plane. Flying over the same roads I was driving, watching myself down there. If you’re having a hard time picturing this, pop in Kubrick’s The Shining DVD and watch the opening sequence as the Torrances make their way up to the lodge, shot from a helicopter tracing their winding path up the wooded road.

Suddenly, being up in the sky and far above the me driving down below, I felt all at once alone and free. I could just keep flying, stay airborne, take it to the mountains or even over the ocean. Stay up in the cold thin air with nothing but the drone of the engines outside. I could look down on little people like me and their purposed motions, heading home for a quick sandwich because they’re about to have a baby and a pound of deli meat is cheaper than a pre-fab sandwich at the cafeteria. But not me. I’m up here in the sky where there’s no turn I can’t take, no direction I can’t point myself in. Aimed into the blue all the way to the horizon.

When I was a kid, in 5th grade or so, I used to daydream about jumping out of my swing at the very top of the arc. I’d spread my arms and fly away, circling above the playground looking down at the upturned heads of my amazed classmates. That, or the one where I could walk on the ceilings, my feet stuck to the top of the walkway coverings – just out of reach of the kids below. Oh, and there was the one where I could walk through walls… that one was mostly used to get into closets other such places where I could spy on girls undressing. So, aside from the pervert one, I guess flying away type escapist fantasies have been with me from a young age. There’s something alluring about looking down on everything, as a supreme being would on his creation. They’re down there, you’re up here – and they can’t even throw a rock and hit you. Money.

Finally, and added early this morning after I’d already auto-published at midnight, some non-abstract writing (and darn good news). Sharaun, who wins so much stuff on the radio that we get W2s from Infinity and ClearChannel, this morning won a 60GB video iPod. She promptly called and told me to get out of bed and tune in for the call-in contest responsible. Oh yeah, and she won some Globetrotter tickets too, which I’m actually pretty pumped about… but the iPod I’ve been dreaming of, and it’s within the baby-budget… free-ninety-free. How she does it, I have no idea.

Goodnight.

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pinks

Would look sweet on the side of a van.
Happy Thursday to you, this week is going fast. To start: some pictures, as I finally got around to taking some of the nearly-done nursery, in all its two-tone pink glory. I’ve added them to my media page, and attentive readers may also find the online debut of Lil’ Chino’s real name (it’s a big thing).

Tonight is the Wolf Parade show in San Francisco; it kinda snuck up on me, and it’s a late one too… doors at 8:30pm and there’s three, count ’em, three opening acts… meaning the Wolf likely won’t even start parading until like 11pm. Looks like it’s going to be a late one, current pillow-ETA estimates coming in at approximately 3:30am. Of course, the show is sold out – two nights actually, so it should be fairly well-attended and, hopefully, high-energy.

I had to replace the headlight on my truck; I’ve done it before and remember it being dead-easy. So, I bought a headlight, and flipped open the manual to the headlight maintenance section to jog my memory. This time though, the burned out headlight was on the driver’s side, previously it was on the passenger. Turns out the driver’s side assembly is a good deal tighter, and not really made for fat hands. Replacing a bulb couldn’t be easier in theory: unplug it, twist the locking ring to the right, pull out the bulb, put in the new one, twist the ring to the left, plug it back in. I failed at the “twist the locking ring to the right” step, as my fat hands couldn’t fit in the tight space well enough to give me sufficient twisting power. Why do things I’m bad at have to be so hard? Anyway, I got smarter than the tight space and went to the trouble of removing the entire battery so I could approach the twisty thing from the rear – that did it, twisted that defiant mofo right off and had the new bulb in lickety-split. Plus, as a bonus, after the hood was closed and tools put away, my hands were stained with suet and grease – to the casual observer I could’ve passed for someone who works on his car because he knows how. Pretend-skills… I got tons of ’em.

G’nite friends.

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cups

Not a bad deal.
OK, I just had to write about this. Have you guys heard about the AirTran Airlines, Wendys, and Coca Cola deal? Until last week, I hadn’t – but I know all about it now. AirTran airlines, a newcomer trying to drum up business and not yet in debt like most established carriers, teamed up with Wendys to offer a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the continental United States; all you have to do is collect 64 Wendys cups, which have coupons for the flights. Sounds too good to be true, right? I thought so too, and so I didn’t give the whole thing much thought. My brother-in-law actually told me about the promotion while we were in Florida last week. He jokingly suggested how easy it would be to collect 64 discarded Wendys cups and earn loads of free flights. We laughed, and I forgot about it.

Then, tonight, he called again – having just returned from a multi-Wendys dumpster-diving run where he and a buddy collected 256 cups in one evening. Turns out his buddy has been doing this every single night for near a month now, and he only found out last night – with just two nights left in the promotion. What’s more, his buddy has collected over thirty free flights in the past month. Yeah sure, you can only redeem two per name, but he’s given two flights to nearly every member of his extended family – some of which have reportedly already redeemed the cups for flights and actually flown AirTran. Sounds crazy, but a quick Google shows he’s not alone, and these things are all over Ebay and Craigslist. One article quotes an AirTran representative, “… the airline anticipated a black market for the promotional cups, Mr. Hutcheson says, but ‘when we looked at the pros and cons of it, the cost of getting exposure for AirTran outweighed the bad.'”

Amazing… just amazing; free flights for nothing more than a romp in some fast food trash. For the record, the deal is over now. Meaning, no new cups are being distributed to Wendys locations. However, you can continue to redeem cups until February of 2006, and some Wendys will continue to give out cups while their existing supplies last. So, if you’re adventurous… dive in!

Three-day weekend!! Goodnight.

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mr. miles

Book's late.
Near the end of our Denver to Orlando leg of the flight to Florida, one of the flight attendants stopped by our Economy Plus exit row aisle and turned to me, “Well Mr. Miles, is this your last flight of the year?” Somewhat surprised, I replied, “Yeah, but this one isn’t business… how’d you know I have a lot of miles?” “We know things,” he responded, “they let us know when the 100ks or million-milers are on board.” I can’t explain to you how awesome this made me feel. Status, baby; notoriety, son. Somewhere, on that dot-matrix printed flight manifest that shows passenger names, seat locations, and who wants kosher or vegetarian meals – there’s a little asterisk or “100k” next to my name. And I had chalked up the extra snacks, attention, and cups of water offered as we boarded to a particularly good flight crew. Next time I’m gonna expect dark-skinned bikini-clad women dropping rose petals in front of me as I take my seat. Right on.

Merry Christmas y’all!!