Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Well, Nanowrimo ended on Friday night, and alas, my number count came up wanting. Instead of the required 50,000 words, I could only muster around 29,000. Still, after a month, I've got a good start on my next novel. Many events contributed to my shortfall, but my lack of concentration was by far the biggest. Case in point: Thursday night I planned to jam out at least 4,000 to 5,000 words. Then at 4:00 PM my boss came and asked me if I could put together a bunch of stats on something I oversee, for a 7:00 AM meeting on Friday. I finally emailed a spreadsheet of crunched numbers around midnight. My next goal is to see how much progress I can make by year's end.

One of the side effects of having children in high school is they end up buying a lot of paperback editions of books for their required reading lists. Since these are often books I read in high school, I've occasionally rescued them after they are no longer needed and re-read them. Today I finished Ray Bradbury's novel , Something Wicked This Way Comes , which I'd first read when I was a teenager. I confess, it took me a long while to get through it, which is surprising, since it is a relatively short novel (the Bantam paperback edition was a mere 215 pages). The poetic narrative voice, often singled out for praise, dragged the story down much of the time. The writing became opaque: I found it hard to loose myself in the story because the prose-poem style got in the way. This stylistic approach also had the effect (for me, anyway) of flattening out some character development, since emotional depth was sometimes sacrificed (or at least compressed) on the altar of the well-tu...

The Corporation, always on the lookout for ways to ruin what little joy they've been unable to steal from our lives, has decided our Performance Reviews are due now instead of mid-January. I guess the thinking is in January we are already numb to the horrors of work after the holidays. This evening, after having the previous six days off, I was faced with the soul-grinding task of updating my review. It largely consists of arbitrary goals, cascaded down from above, with little or no connection to what I actually do. Done six months ago and forgotten until each deadline, I once again turn my prodigious writing skills to describing my turd of a career in terms that make it sound like fertilizer. So now my review will fester in my supervisor's in-box until he gets around to having to process these steaming piles, then we will have a one-on-one, where by he tells me how he likes me personally but finds my professional life a shade less than mediocre. As I sat grinding out nonsens...

The trouble with days off is that, like many other pain-killers, too many and you run the risk of becoming habituated. Then when the pain-killer runs out, withdrawal sets in. It's now the Monday night after Thanksgiving and I've been off since Wednesday. Tomorrow I have to appear back in the office. God, what an awful thought. The only thing lessening this horror is that my supervisor (who, darn it, I like --I just don't like working for him) is out of the office until Wednesday. It's sort of like being sent to hell but getting to stand in the lobby for a few eons as you get acclimated. Or something like that. Thanksgiving was sort of a wild day and set the tone for the days ahead. The Wife got the bug to visit her sister (in London) and scored a free airline pass from a friend who retired from American Airlines. Long story short, she's left Ed and me bachelors for the next month. We drove her to the airport on Thanksgiving Day while listening to Alice's Restaur...

I swear I must be the last person to hear anything. This morning D called to me from the bedroom to ask if I'd heard that Karl Rove had been hired as a columnist at Newsweek . The man known as "Bush's Brain" and "Turd Blossom" thinks he'll acquire a veneer of respectability at the hands of Newsweek. Sorry assholes, not going to work for me. I replied, "I guess we'll be cancelling our subscription." I went to the Newsweek site (you're going to have to Google for it, I refuse to link to them) to find subscriber services and saw I was not the only outraged reader -- all of the comments for the current issue were about this deal born of the devil. More telling was how slow the subscriber services site was -- it took about 10 minutes to load. Must be, ahem, experiencing higher than usual load. I have no problem with conservative commentators. Karl Rove is not a commentator; he's a political thug, a Machiavellian hitman who has shown ther...

New discovery today: Shelley the Republican: the Freedom Blog . Cringe-inducing it is, all the way up until you realize it's arch satire, complete with misspellings and typos. This is farming ground Stephen Colbert goes after, just ratcheted up several notches. Good intro: the page entitled God's Hitlist , complete with several entries labeled "God won." Included under the section "Wrong Choices --( God hates people that belong to one of the groups below because they harm America! " are Gays, Liberals, Linux Users, and Hybrid Cars (and a whole lot more). Mean-spirited in the best of ways.

Once again I've fallen for the lure of the ultimate writing challenge -- 50,000 words in thirty days -- that is NaNoWriMo . So far I'm, er, a little behind target. I should, by all that is reasonable, be writing now: to date I've got about half the word count that I should at this point. Still, I'm making progress, albeit slowly. Not to get into plot divulging, but this year's effort has several story elements well known to me: computers, the arts, selling one's soul, etc. The drippy romantic subplot stuff sucks at this point (but will get better in the rewrites). I'm taking the tack that this rough draft is more or less a glorified skeleton of the plot -- it's light on texture and nuance. Again, that will be fleshed out on subsequent drafts. This year's primary challenge: my real job, which continues to nick away at my life essence.

Bill Watterson, creator of 'Calvin and Hobbes," pens The Grief That Made 'Peanuts' Good , a review of David Michaelis' Schultz and Peanuts: a biography . Watterson's review is literate and thoughtful. Well worth a read.

I confess, one of the principle reasons that NBC's Heroes is my flat-out favorite TV show on the air right now is that they are not afraid to teeter on the absolute edge of jumping the shark. Case in point (potential spoilers ahead -- avert eyes now), this week's episode introduced a plucky new Heroine whose Power is, as far as I can see, the ability to do anything she sees on TV! What more compelling argument could you possibly raise for getting (at the very least) basic cable? I laughed out loud. So wrong yet so very right! Heroes also makes no bones about pimping for the fanboys. The TV-imitating Heroine's grandmother is played by sci-fi icon Nichelle Nichols . You may better remember her as Lt. Uhuru , on the original Star Trek. Her eyes can still cut steel. Also seen this season and last, was another Star Trek alum, George Takei , who played Mr. Sulu. Previously seen as mysterious villain Linderman was (omg!) acting great Malcolm McDowell. How can you not love a sho...

Despite setbacks , the thugs at the RIAA continue to chase down miscreants who choose to share music. Guess what, sports fans - there's a way to get free tunes that they can't do a damn thing about ! Live recordings, old music, new music, jazz, rock, country, world music - all free. All in formats unencumbered by "Digital Rights Management" (which is never about your rights). Not that I'm encouraging anyone to break the law. Far from it. Instead, hope over to http://www.archive.org and look around. This is a site dedicated to the notion , first espoused by Stewart Brand , that " information wants to be free ." It is arguably the world's largest library, with movies, music, text, historical artifacts; all digitally available, all . It is an astonishing project. Among the music archives are tens of thousands of streaming performances in the Live Music Archive , as well as recordings in other formats. Most of these are of regional bands you may have ne...

I blame Ken Burn's excellent documentary " The War ," airing since last Sunday on PBS. Amazon.com has it for pre-order at $79 . I've already ordered my copy.

In the news today: what passes for the Iraq government has banned the operations of Blackwater USA , a secretive private army based in North Carolina, after a violent attack that left 8 Iraqis dead. Blackwater is one of several "security firms" operating in Iraq on a no-bid U.S. Government contract from the Bush administration. Blackwater: the name has the same slightly chilling Kafkaesque quality that "Homeland Security" has. Their website brags they are "the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world." Okay, let's call a spade a spade: they are the largest mercenary army in the world. Mercenaries: guns for hire. You got the money, we got the muscle. Drug lords know all about this shit. So did the Nazis. Hitler's Stormtroopers, least we forget, were a private paramilitary organization. Army officers swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution against ...

I swear I must be Google's biggest fanboy. It's a little embarrassing, really. Their latest thing may seem no small feat until you've attempted to take it on yourself: trying to add RSS feeds to web pages. Their Google AJAX Feed API makes it quick and (relatively) easy. You simply insert some JavaScript, request a (free) numeric key, and paste the target feed URL(s) into your html. For the more adventurous, you can, with a little effort, get in and create customized CSS styles to format the feeds to suit yourself. All relatively simple. In addition to the AJAX Feed API, they've also got code to integrate search (natch) and Google maps, and a slew of other tasks . They've recreated an amazing collection of tools for the small time web developer, all for free. Once again, thanks to the wizards at Google!

I just finished filling out a required employee survey. It is not, I repeat not, being submitted anonymously. The following (reported verbatim) was listed as an objective to assess for the survey: "Alignment of mind-sets and behaviors with those required within the organization." Just shoot me. I hate this f**king place.

While out wasting time researching on Slashdot the other day, one link led to another until I found myself at the TiddlyWiki site. TiddlyWiki is a bit of an oxymoron in that it really isn't for collaboration. What it does, is allow you to create a non-linear set of notes on an html page that can be easily edited and linked to each other, like a wiki does. It can be printed, copied or changed. All TiddlyWiki is, is a web page. A very clever, self-editing, DHTML-enabled web page. To format the text (and create links) requires a fairly simplified markup system (I'm assuming it's more or less standard Wiki markup). Save it and you're done. Load it on a flash drive and you can take it with you. Oh, and did I mention it's free? To use TiddlyWiki, you just download an empty TiddlyWiki html page from the TiddlyWiki site and load it in your browser as a local file. That's it. No executable, no zip file. Since it's just a web page, it will work on any platform tha...

I have come to the belated realization that there are few things sweeter this side of heaven that the three day weekend. The two day weekend is far too short. The first day of it you are haunted by the horrors of the previous work week, and the second day you find yourself dreading the horrors to come. Four days is really too many. Returning to the workplace after that much time off is just too painful. The intoxicating freedom that felt so good slams you with a hell of a hangover. Three days is just about perfect in every possible way.

The resignation of political hack Attorney General Al Gonzales today is the latest sign we are entering (for lack of a better term) the Post-Post-9/11 era. It feels a little like waking up from a hangover after a massive drunk. The Post-9/11 era was most clearly identifiable by the cynical manipulation of fear for political purposes and the willingness to allow America to slip dangerously towards a police state in order to "protect" ourselves in the "War on Terrorism." This became the blanket reason used to justify any act, no matter how onerous or petty, including erosion of civil liberties, domestic spying, extra-legal kidnapping and torture, to name a few. I finally saw the Bourne Ultimatum this weekend; in it, the CIA is depicted as running amuck outside the law. One of the trailers included Rendition , which depicts an " extraordinary rendition " of a woman's husband and her efforts on his behalf. We can thank Al "I don't recall" ...

Alberto Gonzales finally wakes up and smells the coffee. Or his boss did. Or someone did. At this point I don't really care, as long as the slimey little bastard is gone. His boss, the decider-in-chief chided the Congress for "dragging a good man's name through the mud." Coming from the White House, whose last slinking departure included Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove, that's a little too cynical for me. But what can you expect? Given the current animosity between the petulant lame duck and the Democratically controlled legislative branch, Al Gonzales may well be Bush's last confirmed Attorney General. Let's home the flame-out we've witnessed of the current administration will serve as an object lesson in political hubris for decades to come. I'd hate to think of having to go through this bullshit again anytime soon.

This is a little after the fact. Two summer movies I saw a couple of weekends ago both had food themes (in one way or another). No Reservations - fairly predictable date film/romantic semi-comedy, though better than some reviews would have you believe. Saved by the cast: Catherine Zeta-Jone (who looks great even when not playing glamourous); Aaron Eckhart, playing a romantic lead instead of the usual sinister character part; and Abigail Breslin, last seen (by me) in Little Miss Sunshine. As with most romantic comedies, we all know how it ends -- it's all about how we get there. Waitress - by turns bittersweet and tart, even without the off-screen tragedy of the murder of the director, Adrienne Shelly. Why is it most romantic comedies set in the South inevitably end up with someone pregnant? Also a great cast --unexpected standout is Andy Griffith as the curmudgeonly owner of the pie shop. Keri Russell was never better. Nathan Fillion is now one of my wife's favorites. The end...

In honor of the Simpsons movie which opens this weekend (I will absolutely be seeing it), a pair of fairly amazing videos, featuring performances of the theme song, courtesy of YouTube. For starters, as performed on twin electric guitars, by Zack Kim ! Links to more Zack Kim music videos And an old fav, as enthusiastically performed by Sean Gordon on a solo acoustic guitar. Bonus: Sean Gordon plays Star Wars ! Enjoy!

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...Or more accurately I should say I'm finished with Harry Potter -- Book 7, that is. Shortly before dinner this evening, I lay across the living room couch and read the closing pages in the fading light of the day. Overall, a good, enjoyable read. Most fans will probably say it ends in a satisfying way. As with all the books, they could have done with some tightening up. Some of the writing is a little on the clumsy side as well. But overall, they deliver the goods. If you've not read the books, start with the first and persevere through the first 4 or 5 chapters, which are slow going. Once Harry leaves for school though, the chase is on. Now if only I could get myself to start reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle novels again. I'm stuck at about 150 pages on the first book.

It's about 12:45 and I just got back from my local Barnes & Noble, where I (and countless other Harry Potter addicts) waited for the clock to tick down to midnight so we could purchase the final(!) book in the saga -- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows . The atmosphere at the University Park B&N was carnival-like, to say the least: more like "Harry Potter and the Agoraphobe's Nightmare." But resourceful D had gotten a reservation ticket this morning and we were in group Gold B. We managed to get out at 12:30 A.M. Woe unto those that had not planned ahead. Costumes abounded (lots of zigzaggy marks on foreheads and wands), and there was even a roving band of middle-schoolers toting a boombox with the John Williams' score. Obnoxious but fully keeping with the spirit of the evening. We got our two copies (eliminating arguments over who gets to read it first) and headed home. I will now get my flashlight, bury my head under the covers and start reading. There...

I've managed to see three movies thus far this summer. Knocked Up -- chick flick dressed up like guy film. Despite all the raunchy stupid stuff, it is a sweetly romantic film at its heart, which is okay--I like a good romantic comedy. Thumbs up! Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix -- very dark, and the most overtly political film yet, which is not surprising since it is based on the first post-9/11 Potter book. One of the major themes it addresses head-on is the danger of allowing fear to justify the establishment of a police state. Sound familiar? Warning--barely a kid's movie. Thumbs up! Paprika -- adult anime (subtitled). An astonishingly beautiful and surreal film by Satoshi Kon , the director of Tokyo Godfathers. Like a cartoon of some incredibly weird lost Phillip K. Dick novel. You may have a hard time seeing it in theaters, so look for it when it hits DVD. Thumbs up! Things I'm totally NOT interested in seeing: the new Fantastic Four film, any of the current...

Predictably, as the Bush spinmeisters get to work attempting to repair the sinkhole of George's popularity following the Scooter Libby pardon...er, commutation, they of course turned to one of their perennial whipping boys, former president Bill Clinton. One of their chief talking points as they struggle to deflect the glare of bad press is to draw comparisons to Clinton's 11th hour pardon of Marc Rich . Couple of differences however: Rich didn't break the law as part of Clinton's inner circle, unlike Libby, whom it appears was doing the Vice President's dirty work, and he actually served time for his misdeeds, also unlike Libby, who got jerked out of the consequences of his actions before trading up to an orange jumpsuit. A fascinating little piece of serendipity: Rich's lawyer , working to secure his client's early release, was none other that convicted felon Scooter Libby. It truly is a small world, eh?

Funny thing, when I saw that George W Bush (decider in chief) had commuted convicted felon Scooter Libby's sentence on Monday, my reaction was one of calm disgust rather than a flood of rage at this latest finger in the eye of America. Sort of like how I'd feel watching someone I didn't particularly care for at a party drinking to excess. You know they'll reach a point where they are no longer cognizant of what other people think and will eventually be found doubled up somewhere, blowing chunks on the host's carpet. When that happens most people's reaction will be disgust, not rage. Certainly not surprise. You saw it coming, right? And so it is with the Libby commutation. Disgusting but not surprising. I saw a clip of Bush the other day saying he wasn't concerned with his place in history since historians were still arguing about George Washington's presidency. What the hell??? The interesting thing will now be if Congress has the gumption to exercise th...

I listen to Keith Olbermann on MSNBC occasionally when I'm in the mood for righteous indignation. Here's a link to his commentary on July 3rd where he says Bush and Cheney should resign . Not that this is going to happen (not in this plane of existance anyway), but it's comforting to consider the possibility.

Dick...Ch..Cheney...subpoena... Must...be...strong.  Must...resist...urge to...rant.... Arrgghhh!

Just saw on Slashdot that Don Herbert , TV's ' Mr. Wizard ,' died today . He was 89. In many ways he was a rationalist version of Mr Rogers for my generation growing up in the late 5o's - early 60's, preaching the gospel of science to a generation raised in the shadow of Sputnik. Like Mr Rogers, his show featured children helping him in his experiments and proceeded at a leisurely pace that these days would be considered slow. He was also the pioneer for shows such as Bill Nye the Science Guy , showing that an intelligent science-themed show could be a success. Although Don Herbert was primarily an actor (Bill Nye has a degree in mechanical engineering) he took on the mantle of science educator for several generations of children. His original Watch Mr. Wizard premiered in 1951 on NBC and ran until 1965. NBC revived it during the 1971-72 season, and he hosted Mr. Wizard's World for Nickelodeon, which ran from 1983-90 and then in reruns until 2000. His shows ...

I was scheduled to have my mid-year performance review tomorrow (now mercifully postponed since I didn't send it to my supervisor for his input until late afternoon) and it reminded me of the latest bit of corporate zeal. We had one of our periodic all group off-site breakfast meetings last week. These typically consist of coffee, carbohydrates and lots of PowerPoint slides. The most highly touted stuff is usually bullshit, and the really interesting stuff is the stuff they try to slide by as "oh, by the way." It operates on the same principle that professional magicians and card cheats use -- misdirection. One of the perks provided to us in the salt mine is free sodas. It sounds stupid, but gosh, I'll admit it: I can be bought for a 12 oz. can of Diet Dr Pepper. Last week's "oh by the way" moment was when they flashed the slide showing the cost of our free sodas doubled from last year to the (projected) cost this year: $50,000. Never mind that our sta...

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To celebrate 30 years of Star Wars, enjoy the Star Wars Cantina By Richard Cheese ! Cheesy it is!

Rather than hearing my whining, I thought I'd offer you a chance to read an excerpt from Lee Iacocca's book Where Have All the Leaders Gone as featured on Border's/Amazon. His rage is like a bracing splash of cold water to the dull haze of complacency the nation has been drifting through for the past six years. Says Lee, " You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged . This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have." This rant makes mine seem the work of a complete wuss. Enjoy!

Time to take a break from ranting (even I get tired of hearing myself bitch) and instead talk about my friend and fellow writer Bonnie Pemberton's new book, The Cat Master . I'll let you read the reviews at Amazon but it's the story of two brothers (who happen to be cats) battling over who will fill the paws of their late father to be the Cat Master. Along the way, we hear from a host of other animals, including dogs, possums, and a one-of-a-kind lizard. Talking animals? Yes, but wait, they talk a lot like you and me -- wise-ass, funny and hard-boiled. Although marketed to a middle-school audience, Bonnie says this was not originally intended to be a children's book. My dear wife (the children's librarian) has read the advance copy, as have several of the students at her school, and they all love it. Now that I have a (signed by the author!) hard-back copy I'll be taking turns reading it with the other members of the household. Today, she had a book-signing and...

Believe me, I never thought I'd live to see the day when I actually felt sense of admiration or sympathy for former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Then I read how Al Gonzales and Andrew Card tried to bully him into signing off on the NSA's secret domestic surveillance program while he lay in a hospital bed , suffering from acute pancreatitis. It seems the AG refused to certify the legality of Bush's latest assault on our civil liberties, so Gonzales, ever the loyal toad, went to twist the arm of the old man in his sickbed. Congratulations, Al. Just about the time I'm convinced you can't be any more of a reprehensible little shit, you manage to surpass yourself. What's next? Concentration camps? Oh wait -- never mind .

Republican Presidential wannabee Tommy Thompson has added to the inventory of half-assed excuses Republicans trot out when explaining away some lie or painfully stupid (and candid) remark: I had to pee. This is his latest explanation as to why, during the recent Republican candidates' debate, he said employers ought to have the right to fire gay employees if they find homosexuality immoral. Oh, and his hearing aid was dead. Did his dog eat his homework, too? "I had to pee" is a refreshing change from the old standbys usually offered by the Republicans for their boorish/illegal behavior: I was drunk I don't recall I was drunk and don't recall "Everyone" else does it

I've resisted saying anything about the tragedy at Virginia Tech since there's little I can add that will shed any light on the darkness that seems to lurk so close to the surface of our lives. Then this morning I read what Paige Patterson had to say about the subject. In case you don't follow the tawdry world of the current Southern Baptist Convention, you may not recognize the name. After being part of the gang of thugs that hijacked the SBC in the 1980's for the sin being too Liberal ("liberal" and "Baptist" are two words one seldom see in close proximity to each other), Paige was rewarded with the Presidency of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. After eviscerating it, he took on the Presidency of Southwestern Baptists Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, turning a once respected part of the community into a local embarrassment. In his personal site , he opines that if only a few of the students had been willing to charge the shooter...

How much longer is this farce going to continue? Last week when appearing before the Senate, Al Gonzales became the latest in a long string of sufferers of ARFS (Acquired Republican Forgetful Syndrome). One representative excerpt: "Senator, I have searched my memory. I have no recollection of the meeting." I'm surprised he could even remember his name. His performance was so embarrassingly bad that he's even lost the support of Senate Republicans , who really wanted to be able to say, "He's not so bad." But gosh-darn it, he was . Like a house-guest who's clearly overstayed his welcome, Al Gonzales doesn't have the grace or sense to know it's time to leave. And GWB, Decider in Chief, doesn't have the brains or cojones tell him. Newsweek reports an unnamed White House adviser says the President is afraid this will " embolden the Dems to go after other targets—like Karl Rove. " I got news for him...the Democrats will require no emb...

I took Friday off so I could go to a writer's conference. Other than the fact I'm Directionally Challenged (I got lost in North Richland Hills, for pete's sake) and showed up late, it was big success. The speakers were uniformly good: interesting material, well-presented. Plus several literary agents led sessions ("How to write a query letter") and did one-on-ones with folks. While I didn't actually make it in time to do a formal one-on-one, I did manage to parlay my skill for off-the-cuff tech support into a chance to talk up my nearly completed novel while helping one of the agents with their new laptop. How much this eventually helps me remains to be seen, but it certainly couldn't hurt. Novel: now in the midst of Draft 3. No longer embarrassingly amateurish. I've gone so far as to start plotting Novel Number 2.

My youngest just turned 16. We stood in the doorframe so D could mark our height and compare. The verdict? He's now as tall as me, and not just almost. After verifying, he generously pointed out I still outweigh him by forty pounds. Ouch.

I love Skype but the Powers that Be decreed that we could not install it on our company laptops. Okay, for once I'm not bitching since from an IT perspective I can understand the reasoning behind the decision. Not so much that Skype is inherently insecure but that anything that opens up the company network is a security issue. Still, it's a pain in the ass, since there are times when it would be nice to have it available. This week, for instance, when I'm on the road. I found out it is fairly easy to set up Skype to run off a USB flashdrive, using instructions from www.gruups.com/usbskype . The same instructions appear at www.von-phone.com/portable-skype.php --don't know who was the original author. Download Skype and install it on any computer. Find the Skype.exe from where it was installed. (Usually C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe ) Copy the Skype.exe file to any directory on your USB Drive In that new directory create a directory called "data...

Things in the Bush White House are taking on more and more Watergate-esque elements, what with the chief law-enforcement officer in the land looking more and more like a pathological liar, and his senior staff's fingerprints all over the outing of a CIA agent, and...well the list goes on and on. Republicans in Congress are calling for Gonzales' head and saying the President is out of touch with Iraq. With subpoenas to Karl Rove and Harriet Miers now a distinct possibility in the case of the eight fired US Attorneys, George is talking tough, claiming executive privilege. Haven't I seen this movie before? I think it's called All The President's Men . This morning I read the word "impeachment" mentioned in the paper, in a story about Chuck Hagel no less. As much as I'd love to see George get the kick in the ass he's needed for most of his adult life, impeachment ain't gonna happen. In a word: Cheney. As miserable a loser as Bush may be, for all h...

Once our Fearless Leader starts telling people what a great job you're doing, can the walking papers be far behind? Alberto Gonzales, another in a long line of slimeball Republican Attorney Generals (John Mitchell, Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft) who takes delight in wiping their asses with the Constitution, looks close to finally taking the rap for the current administration's latest assault on democracy. Let's see: Firing eight US Attorneys for blatantly political reasons Attempting to slide their replacements without Senate confirmation using a loophole in the Patriot Act (now on it's way to being closed) Lying about the above ...Not to mention eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without warrants, and the unprecedented and largely ignored stripping away of our civic freedom, all in the name of "fighting terror." Tony Snow's lukewarm endorsement the other day spoke volumes. No doubt Al's been packing the corrugated boxes in his office right now, awaiting ...

...Did you remember to change your clocks? If not...

Another of my yawn-worthy posts about my effort to escape Windows. Flee now or be geeked out. I've played with Linux at various times over the years but there was always an application I just couldn't bear to give up. Microsoft Office I could give up. Internet Explorer I could give up. Dreamweaver I could give up. Winamp I could give up. Photoshop...I can't give that up. Sure, people say Gimp is just like Photoshop. Sorry, close but no cigar. Enter Wine. To quote from the WineHQ website: " Wine is a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems. " In English: use it to run Windows apps on Linux. I'd tried Wine on various occasions in the past and it was impressive as a parlor trick but a tad flaky. So with my newly installed copy of Kubuntu Linux (Ubuntu with KDE) I installed Wine and messed with Photoshop over the weekend with decidedly mixed results. I could get it instal...

I'm tired of listening to myself bitch about Windows. Maybe it's my naturally suspicious nature, but the more I read about Vista, the less it appeals to me. I'm running XP on a couple of machines and it's bloated enough. Vista apparently takes bloat to a whole new level , and wraps it up with the worst Digital Rights Management ever. (An aside - notice how Digital Rights Management is never about your rights?) So I'm exploring two non-Microsoft options. The first is looking into getting a Mac as the family computer. I got my oldest son an iBook when he went off to college and he loves it. This after years of Windows. It's easy to set up and simple to use. Unfortunately, beneath its sleek, elegant exterior, Apple's corporate heart is as rotten as Microsoft's. The way I see it, they're both Nazis; Apple just has better looking uniform The other option is to go to Linux I started out with Slackware years ago, and since then have tried Red Hat, Mandrak...

A cool thing I am now using in earnest: portable apps. Applications you don't install on your computer and you can take with you to other computers. They live on a USB flashdrive. To use them, you plug the flashdrive in and start the frontend program. It then lives in the tray and is accessed by a single click of the mouse. An assortment of applications are available specifically for the system; all are open source and have been recompiled to write all their settings to the flashdrive rather than your registry. Among them are: Firefox - web browser Open Office 2.0 suite AbiWord - word processor 7Z - compression/archiving; like Winzip VLC - media player FileZilla - FTP program Other apps include an anti-virus program, Sudoku, and Instant Messaging client. I gather more are being added. So far, it works like a charm. Hearing the rumblings that we may soon have to remove Firefox from our company laptops has generated a great deal of interest amongst my co-workers. PortableApps : hig...

I just noticed I've whined for a solid month about my job. Is that pathetic or not? Anyway, I promise to lay off work topics for at least a month to get back on track. Or I had planned to, anyway. Then I got the email this morning that said no more non-supported (read: anything other than Microsoft Internet Exploder) would be allowed on company-owned laptops. Bye-bye Firefox. I asked our director (very carefully) whose decision this was, and without answering my question in a straight forward way, he let me know it was the work of Beany Countwell, our intrepid CIO (Chowderheaded Incompetent Obstructionist): Mister Smarter/Faster/Better himself. I put together an email stating how we used Firefox's web developer tools as an aid to productivity, but that ain't going change anything. The Microsoft Nazis have begun to goosestep.

After a month of printing out my weekly calendar and keeping detailed notes, then entering my time into our web-based time accounting system in 15 minute increments, I've developed a new method of tracking, which has simplified things a great deal. I call it MSU: Make Shit Up. It's much more efficient, and arguably just as accurate.

Yet another sad but instructive tale from the annals of the IT world. Yesterday, our network was shit. Email was slow, half the corporation couldn't get to any web-based applications and those that did found them unbearably slow. People whose jobs depended primarily on being able to do work online (me, for example) found ourselves sitting on our hands. Of course the application I babysit for a living was hosed. We were able to do some stuff in our development environment, but the production environment -- forget it. I spent a large amount of time replying to emails ("Yes, we are aware of the problem and working to resolve it as quickly as possible") from our user population since there wasn't much else I could do. Many games of Solitaire were played yesterday, I suspect. At around 6:30 PM, after being on a conference call for about 5 hours with the vender to whom we outsourced control of infrastructure, my counterpart who's responsible for making sure the machines...

Last week I put in an 88 hour week. I didn't like it but it was a necessary evil in my line of work. Furthermore, I have no illusions that I'll be taking any comp time either. Today was supposedly a holiday and I ended up working at least 4 hours from home. I had one of those sad realizations that seem to come to me so often about my job -- sort of a mathematical thing. My salary is based on me working 40 hours a week (yeah, right). If I work for 80+ hours and get no other compensation or comp time, I've effectively taken a 50% pay cut for the week. Do the math. Beany Countwell, our CIO (Chief Income Outsourcer) loves to go on about working Faster/Cheaper/Better. What it really means is finding assholes like me who'll work massive amounts of unpaid overtime to fuel his bonus. Keep your merit raise. Just pay me for the hours I actually work.

The Bean Counters now have us using a time keeping program (web-based, of course). When, last month, we were told at our functional unit's group meeting that we were about to start doing this, we were assured it wasn't because they don't trust us. Do we do chargebacks to our internal customers? No. Uh-huh. In addition to being so granular that I have about 40 different time categories to account for, across 10 different business units, we are required to always account for at least 8 hours every day, either to projects or to personal time, regardless of how many hours we spend total for the week. Do we have official categories assigned to specific activities? Not exactly -- lots of categories but no official word on how or what we are to charge things to. Today, after hitting 40 hours late Thursday (slow week) I found myself at 1 PM with 45 hours for the week but only 5 hours for the day. So I was forced to enter 3 hours of personal time when I left so I could pad the day...

...Never attend meetings that include the insane. They always run over the allotted time. You've been warned.

The application I babysit at work has been having "issues" (code word for "fucking up"). A colleague contacted the vendor's tech support and they recommended we install a patch. Eyebrows raised all around. In reading the release notes, the following gems were uncovered: ...the hashcode functions in these classes are horrendous. ...and: [blank] was the customer that profiled our code to find this issue. Wouldn't it be nice if we could actually profile our own code instead of having to have our customers do it for us? We forwarded this to my boss who then passed it on to our account rep with a solemn pronouncement. She reported back that these comments were the work of a "disgruntled employee" who no longer worked there. You think?

The last few years have been hard on a fair number of us who claim Texas as our home and birthplace. The Dixie Chicks aren't the only ones ashamed to have the former governor of Texas squatting in the White House, remaking America's image like a child smearing feces on his walls. We might have the shame of George W. Bush, but thank God we got to claim Molly Ivins ! Sadly she passed away January 31, 2007, of breast cancer. After being treated for it in 1999, she observed, "First they poison you; then they mutilate you; then they burn you. I've had more fun." With the passing of Ann Richards, former governor and another quick wit, we've lost two of the great voices of Texas liberalism, leaving us with the likes of Tom DeLay, former congressman and rat poisoner, and Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry. Why are all our women smart and funny and our men mean-spirited or stupid? Almost makes me wish I was a woman. Swinging at the forces of evil until the end,...

I happened to look at the Sunday ads today for all the electronics places I keep up with -- Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot and the like -- and saw that Windows Vista goes on sale(?) at Midnight, Monday night. Just like Harry Potter! So that we are all thoroughly confused, Windows Vista comes in four (count'em) four different versions, each with...well, I couldn't really tell you. Here's a chart that shows exactly what you get for your dough. I mean, this is a goddamn operating system, for pity's sake, not the second coming of Christ. The new Super Deluxe Ultimate Kitchen Sink version caught my eye. If purchased without an upgrade, it will cost you $400. More than your freaking computer, probably. My first reaction was, "What the Fuck?" My second reaction was, "This is definitely the year I switch over to Linux, once and for all." Eat me, Bill.

...That the reason I was tagged to do Six Sigma (or "Thick Thigma" as we like to call it in the cul-de-sac I call my career) was NOT that my supervisors decided I had that ineffable quality that makes for rising stars in the glittering firmament of Management. No, it's because the guy they (probably) had in mind, should have had in mind at any rate, just gave notice. So they had an empty slot to fill to make their goals for training this year. Damn, that's a relief to know.

In the post prior to this, I arrogantly mocked the corporate cult religion known as Six Sigma (go look it up yourself -- I can't bring myself to explain) by posting a Dilbert cartoon mocking it. Today, as I relaxed at my desk, preparing to slide out to lunch, my boss came and beckoned me to follow him. On our way to our unknown destination, he revealed to me I had been chosen (anointed?) to undergo Six Sigma Green Belt certification this year. Aieee! I've been asked to drink the Kool-Aid! The Gods once again reveal the twistedness of their sense of humor. On the bright side, I may have found the motherlode of absurdity to be mined for my next novel. (On a completely random note: did you know the 1960's British band Sigma 6 was a precursor to Pink Floyd? Me neither.)

From Dilbert today : It's scary...like the guy lives in the cube next to me or something.

I reset about 150 user passwords last night. Then I got up this morning, flipped to the comics page and read Dilbert : Damn....He's like some sort of Nostrildogmas! Freaky.

Got up at 4 this morning to let a persistent cat outside. A light dusting of snow coated the deck out back. Then at 6:15 the phone rang. I thought to myself, "Could that be D's school, calling to cancel classes?" Indeed it was! I flipped on the TeeVee and saw James the Weatherman (a personal friend), microphone in hand, shivering on camera for the amusement of those of us up at the crack of dawn. At his feet was a rather pathetic foot tall snowman he'd named David FinFlake (a little weatherman joke -- David Finfrock is the primetime weather guy). All the local schools had thrown up their hands and said "No school!" So I stayed home and telecommuted. Booyah, Beanie!

I haven't mentioned the Novel of late (had a dry spell over the holidays) but joys of my workplace inspired me to get serious again. I'm happy to say that over lunch today I managed to finish rewriting the 2nd draft (subject to fine-tuning based on suggestions offered by my writer's group). Now I go back to the beginning, re-read, and throw myself into the third draft -- which hopefully will result in something I can actually start circulating. For those of you who haven't been keeping up with this bit of self-indulgence, my book is about Intellectual Property (among other things). Whoo!

Usually I'm proud to admit I'm a Democrat. Not always. Hearing Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) and Joe Biden (D-Del) shill for the music industry makes me not proud. The RIAA, the thugs who can't squeeze enough money out of their customers are now busily working to pass legislation specifying what formats webcasters supply their content in. Hello? Remember the war in fucking Iraq? The Music and Movie industry, who have been steadily eroding consumers rights ( Earth to Dianne: consumers = voters ) to decide how they can listen to their purchased music, now has decided to mandate the forms in which online music can be delivered. To put it in more concrete terms, if I wanted to read this crap I write and release it as a podcast, Dianne and Joe would make it illegal to encode it to certain audio formats . The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) goes for the moral high ground on the issue of Digital Rights Management, but be not misled: this is the bunch who ha...

I grew up in the Cold War. As a child I always lived in large population centers (with strategic importance). One of the ongoing memories of my elementary school experience was the drill where we'd all file out of our classrooms, line up along the lockers in the hall, duck down and cover our heads with our little hands. Duck and cover. It was generally understood we practiced this exercise in case those perfidious Russkies dropped the Hydrogen Bomb on us. As I grew older, I came to understand this would accomplish little, save perhaps making it easier to sweep up our incinerated remains (assuming there was anyone left to do the sweeping). One of the few voices raised against the development and stockpiling of nuclear weapons -- which led to the insanity that came to be known serendipitously as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) -- was that of J. Robert Oppenheimer, subject of American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer , an excellent biography by Kai Bird ...

Yet another adventure in the old Dilbertocracy today -- the 2007 Sisyphean Corp IT department kick-off meeting this morning. Beany Countwell ("I'm a numbers man"), our CIO, fed us carbs and caffeine at an off-site location then hammered us with PowerPoint slides and business homilies. I've said it before but it bears repeating: if you listen carefully you can learn a lot more at these functions than management intends for you to learn. It's all in understanding the code. Management often speak in opposites. Example: when describing a soon-to-be-implemented system to track employees' time (in 15 minute increments), Beany emphasized it wasn't because management didn't trust us. No, that wasn't it at all. Meaning, of course, that was precisely why they were doing it. An HR rep discussed "taking charge of our careers," in which they revealed (with a curious lack of realization) that management kept a hit list of certain individuals to be...

Saw the headline " Bush aims to balance budget by 2012 " and my first thought was "What the F*CK???" I felt like I'd fallen into some weird alternate universe where GWB wasn't a lying bastard who spent money like a drunken fratboy with Daddy's American Express card. Isn't this the same GWB who inherited a 200 billion dollar budget surplus from Bill Clinton and burned through it like a crack addict? Last time I checked, we were running an 8 trillion dollar deficit . How convenient that he "aims" to have it balanced 4 years after he's out of office (that way it will be the Democrat's fault, since no doubt we've seen our last Republican administration for a couple of terms). He "aims" to balance the budget? Let's hope his "aim" is better than Dick Cheney's .

Back from my trip to Toronto, where number one son is now in the dorm. Classes start on the 3rd. We spent considerable time one night trying to find classes to add to his schedule. This was a challenge, since almost all were already closed. Still, we managed. Getting a cellphone proved to be a bit of a challenge - the Canadian providers all want to nickel and dime you to death adding features that came by default with our current US provider. So I'm still working it out. York was founded in 1959 and the campus architecture was largely cheery late Bauhaus - very European. Although fairly removed from Toronto proper, it is well connected via bus and subway. We made our way from the hotel where we were staying to the campus via Toronto's subway and bus system. Other than the time involved, it worked flawlessly. When we were finished on campus, I made my way back to the airport using public transport as well. As a comparison: we took a cab to the hotel from the airport which cost $...