Geek

I was flipping through the channels the other day rather disgusted with what our hundreds of channels were offering in the way of “entertainment”. Reality shows, depressing news, infomercials, commercials, commercials and more commercials; it seemed like there was nothing on.

And then I stumbled across one of our favorite channels, Logo. And there she was, larger than life as always, and looking just as good as she did a little over 10 years ago when I first discovered her.

Welcome back my TiVo To Do List, Xena: The Warrior Princess. Thank the Universe for reruns.

By the way, the rumors are true, I do have my own chakram. It’s a cheap imitation, it never returns to me when I throw it.

Providing technical support to customers can sometimes be very interesting. Working in the telecommunications field, you get all sorts of people asking questions you could never even begin to imagine. With part of our company devoted to telephone and toll-free service, we have lovers leaving voice messages in “secret voicemail boxes”, sex line operators calling in with sexual harassment complaints, the list goes on and on.

Today was an exercise in tacky.

Now, I’m going to tell you up front that I’m not going to provide a link to the website I’m about to discuss. But the site in question is for a funeral home and it is an exercise in tacky right from the start.

Normally, when one thinks of a funeral home, they think of a somber, respectful place where family and friends can pay their last respects to a loved one. Personally, I think the website for a funeral home should be an extension of that atmosphere, it should be designed to be informative and respectful and should maintain a certain amount of dignity.

The website is nothing like that. There’s scrolling messages proclaiming sales. There’s a timer/clock thing that follows your mouse around the screen and when you land on the site, a woman’s voice comes booming through your speakers in an effort to sound God like. I found it so startling that I don’t even remember what it says.

Mind you, as I’m browsing this site, I have the customer on the phone and am trying to address some technical issues.

So I take a look around the site, which gives the weather in both fahrenheit and celsius, and then I jump to a registration page where music comes blaring out and it’s, get ready for it…

… “Dust In The Wind”. In glorious “I bought it at K-mart in 1987” Casio Keyboard splendor.

After listening to some music I then notice another link on the site.

TO THEIR WEBCAM.

The webcam shows the front steps so that people may get a glimpse of “pall bearers, the hearse, the automatic sprinklers or someone shoveling snow!” The cam can be repositioned to face inside the funeral home if requested.

Groovy.

I am proud to say that I maintained my professionalism the entire time while working with the customer on his website. Thank goodness the music and floating doodads are relegated to the Internet Explorer users.

Well here it is Saturday night in our merry little household. Tom is asleep at my feet. I noticed today that the fur around his ears has a new reddish tinge to it, obviously someone put a little too much hydrogen peroxide in his skunk cleaning solution (hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish detergent) and gave the cat a dye job. We’re the trendiest folks on the block. He smells much better these days, has highlights to match. Next thing you know he’ll be “soaking in it”, the dish detergent that is, just as Madge said for all those years.

I’ve been nothing short of a full blown geek today, working on some road related stuff for my road enthusiast website and designing new sign panels for suggestions to NYSDOT. They must love me. I wonder how that first interview will go after I’m a real traffic engineer. “Oh yes, we remember YOU. GET OUT PEASANT!” I hope it doesn’t go like that as I try to be quite constructive with my comments. Anyway, I’ve been doodling on Fireworks, here’s a sample:

No big deal to the common motorist, but a vast improvement over the signs that currently stand at this location.

Earl is off to the local casino hopefully winning lots and lots of money. He’s been working on his poker strategy. I’m hoping that he’s having a good time. He is much more talented than I could ever dream of being when it comes to gambling. I think I feel too guilty when I lose and that impedes any strategy I might have.

The wind is blowing like crazy and it’s a cold wind. There’s a definite chill of autumn in the air tonight, courtesy of the remnants of Ernesto.

It’s going to be good sleeping weather tonight!

Last weekend I mentioned that I was giving the latest version of Microsoft Windows, Vista Ultimate, a spin on the lone PC in the house. I had found the newest offering to be “pretty” but a little confusing for the seasoned Windows power user. It also caused our Airport Extreme base station to lock up. Talk about not playing nice with others! I’d browse the internet a little bit and then I’d find that none of the computers in the house could communicate with the outside, nor with each other.

Hasta La Vista, Vista Ultimate.

I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do when I start school and have to run Windows based programs in the name of education, but for the time-being I’m back to Ubuntu Linux, and it’s running better than ever. I have it looking just as pretty as Vista Ultimate did. In fact, I think it looks even better.

If you want further information on what Ubuntu can do for you, drop me a line.

Earl and I have been talking about this for quite some time. Today I received confirmation. I head back to school in September with my first class – AutoCAD I.

I’m going to become a Traffic Engineer with a Civil Engineering degree.

I’m taking it one step at a time.

I need to get some AutoCAD under my belt so I can hit the ground running in January when I start hitting the college books. Assuming of course, that I survive AutoCAD I and then AutoCAD II later this fall.

As an avid motorist, I want to do my part in designing and marking roads so they are safer and easier to navigate. I’ve dabbled in the trade all my life, it’s time to get serious about it.

And at 38 years old, I’m sure I’ll be very popular at the keg parties.

I am writing this blog entry on a Windows computer this afternoon. That’s right, I said Windows computer. And said computer is in my house. It’s running one of the latest builds of Windows Vista Ultimate, pre-Release Candidate 1.

As a computer support tech, one of my responsibilities is to know what’s going on in the world of computers. That makes sense, right? Well, since Microsoft Windows is the operating system on most of the computers across this great land, then I need to be familiar with the ins and outs of the operating system. So I figured I’d jump ahead and start seeing what this Windows Vista thing is all about.

I’ve been messing with it for the past two hours and I do have a few comments.

1. It sure is pretty. I really like the aesthetics of using it. It looks good.
2. I’m still trying to figure out why things have been moved where they’ve been moved to. For example, to change your background picture, in Windows XP, you right click on the desktop and click “Desktop Properties” and go from there. In Windows Vista, you right click on the desktop and click “Personalize” then jump around in some dialog windows before getting to the familiar Windows XP screens. It’s a few extra clicks and may seem intuitive to a newbie, but I’m hoping Microsoft builds an “Express” option into the final product that lets power users click around like they’re used to doing in Windows XP.
3. For a pre-release candidate version of software, it’s pretty stable and responsive. I wasn’t expecting that.
4. It’s still Windows.

I’ve also installed the Office 12 Beta, as I’ve heard wonderful things about the latest incarnation of Office. For those that have grown up with Office in the corporate environment, when you first fire this baby up you’re going to have a few moments of panic as EVERYTHING looks different. But once you start jumping around a little bit and start figuring out where everything is, it isn’t as bad as it first appears. Just for fun I’m typing this blog entry in Microsoft Word and then I’m going to cut and paste it into my blog entry screen. Let’s see if I can successfully do that before switching back to Ubuntu Linux.

This all being said, I must say that Microsoft is making great strides in the world of Windows. Windows Vista is going to take some hefty horsepower to run with all the bells and whistles (my test computer barely makes the grade with a 2.0mhz Processor, 768MB RAM and a Radeon GeForce 7600 GS video card), but there are quite a few improvements in the system that should make surfing a more pleasant experience for Joe User.

However, I’m still very much in love with our Mac hardware and offer you a toast of Apple Kool-Aid.

I was directed to We Are The Web by Joe. My. God.’s blog and of course I clicked “play” on the video. This video supports Net Neutrality and features some famous internet celebrities.

The track is pretty catchy and it’s for a good cause.

A New Member of the Family.

Originally uploaded by bluemarvel.

There was a slight tingle at the base of my neck. My spidey-sense was kicking into overdrive as I made my way home for lunch. As I pulled in the driveway and looked at the front door, the tingles turned to sheer excitement as I saw a package had arrived.

The new Mac Mini has arrived!

Earl and I have been talking about buying either a gaming console or a computer for our home entertainment system. We’re fortunate enough to have a pretty big flat panel television and it was just begging to have a computer attached to it, affording us the opportunity to play games, archive some stuff off of the satellite and browse the web from the luxury of our sofa with a really big monitor.

Overtime pay has been cooperative in the sense that we were in the position to make the purchase, so I went ahead and embarked on the excitement of purchasing a new Mac through the online Apple Store. Few things excite me more!

It has been dubbed “Tagada“. Why “Tagada”, you ask? Good question, let me tell you. Being a very proud geek, we have more computers than your average household. I would bet to say that we have more computers than all the people that live in the apartment complex down the street put together. And being as eccentric as I am, I like to keep the computers names based on a theme. Since computers are my playground, then it’s appropriate for them to be named after amusement park rides.

The server in the basement is “scrambler”.

My PowerBook is “tempest“.

The studio Mac Mini is “himalaya”.

The linux computer is “trabant”.

The little server in the basement is “ticketbooth” (since it gives out authentication tokens to the others).

And it goes on and on from there. Thankfully, Earl has learned to be patient. Tonight, I fire Tagada up for the first time. If you need me, I’ll be parked on the couch playing Sim City.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m enjoying “Who Wants To Be A Superhero?” on Sci-Fi this summer. It’s a reality show about an initial group of 12 superheroes that, in true reality show style, are being weeded down to the last one standing, who will win his or her own Sci-Fi movie and have their character featured in Stan Lee’s latest comic. It’s an interesting show in that there are many twists and turns, plus there’s groovy costumes and great cheesy special effects thrown in for good measure.

It’s “Big Brother” with a Super Geek twist.

Unfortunately, it’s a little too “Big Brother” for me, in that more than half of the contestants on the show are struggling actors with acting credits behind their name.

That sucks.

Everyone expects a reality show to be somewhat scripted. It has to be, because television producers are terrified to let anything happen on their own; ratings and ad revenue are both conquered best in a controlled environment. I understand that and I accept that.

What I don’t understand is the need to populate these “reality shows” with a bunch of actors. There are a ton of supergeeks out there that would love the opportunity to dress up in their favorite spandex outfit and prove to the world that they are a superhero. These folks would keep it real all the way. They’d get their 15 minutes of fame, show off a little bit in front of the family and friends and then quietly fade back into their secret batcave and continue to silently better the world, a little stronger and a little more able because of their experience on television.

Is it unreasonable to ask that producers use real people in their next round of reality shows? I don’t think so. Come on guys, let’s keep it real.

And yes, I’ll still watch the show, but since I’ve looked up the contestants on imdb, the fun has kind of disappeared. Small wonder YouTube has become so popular. It’s the only place you can find reality television.

Well, my blog is five years and nine days old. Here’s the very first entry:

August 4, 2001

Well here I am trying to maintain an on-line journal. I hope to do this once or twice a week to let curious people know what the heck is going on with our life.

Today Earl and I went along with my sister and her fiancée to the Pulaski Field Days. For those unfamiliar with the “field days” concept, it’s a town carnival sponsored by the local fire department to raise money. There’s amusement rides, chicken BBQs and other food, a parade, games and much other merriment. It’s also like Old Home Days, as you tend to run into people you haven’t seen in a long time. Well this year I ran into a few of my old teachers from my school days, and it was wonderful to see them. As well as some old classmates. I have said for years that I never see anyone from my particular class. And I mean NEVER! Well for once I saw someone I graduated with and a bunch of others that hung out as part of “the band clique”. And Jen and Jody won two stuffed animals on the games.

My dad is a private pilot and has built his own airplanes as well. Tonight was also the first night that I’ve ever flown in his new Acro Sport. WOW! It’s an open cockpit bi-plane (four wings instead of two) that cruises at about 110-120 MPH. He used to have a Piper J-5A from the 40s that cruised along at 80 MPH, so this one is really a rush. You get to wear the old aviator’s helmet and goggles and everything in this!

My dad has aviator fuel for blood, and he’s happiest when he’s flying or working on his airplane. We used to fly a lot together, it was nice doing it again today. I imagine that I’ll become a private pilot someday as well.

Hmmm, it seems some things never change.