August 2006 Archive

Welcome to the Archive for August 2006! What you will find here may be old. It may scare you. It may even scare me! More importantly, you might find links that no longer work, and *gasp* information that is no longer, or possibly never was, accurate in any way. Don't rely on this information to save your life!

August 2006 Archive

Sunday, August 27, 2006

[Comments: 0] 1:57 AM - birdhouse-in-your-soul

I almost forgot! They Might Be Giants are great in concert. The "Zoo" concert experience was lacking, as it was relatively annoying to get there, and when I arrived, it was too late for a good place on the lawn. The layout was not conducive to a good concert in my opinion, but They Might Be Giants still rocked (literally).

This was my promised "next time they're in town" obligation, but I am promising myself to see them again next time they're in town at a better venue, where I can hopefully get a bit closer and have more fun.

TMBG played a lot of good stuff, older and newer, most of which I know well, though most of the real classics came in the encore. Apparently there's a regularly featured conga line down in front of the stage. I was too far back to see it, but it must have been fun to see/participate in.

I stood off on one of the paths around the lawn with a clear view of the stage (until everyone stood up). People around me weren't too enthusiastic, unfortunately, but I tried to not let myself feel weird for standing there singing along, etc. If I can get in closer with the better crowd next time, I'm sure I'll have more fun. I edged closer as people started to trickle out and it was a little better then.

I came away with a new T-Shirt (woot, I'm wearing a shirt with an image on it!) and a DVD thing which I need to look at some point.

The opener, The Bad Examples, was a local Chicago band. The zoo concert series was supposed to be family oriented, so the lyrics of the songs from this band were rather surprising. I don't think really anyone was paying them much attention though, so few parents likely noticed. The overwhelming supply of kids was probably what made the area I was standing too unenthusiastic. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people there also had bought concert series tickets and just went because they could, which might have explained the rest.

Anyway, it was still awesome, and I hope it'll be even better next time.

[Comments: 1] 1:09 AM - movie-going

I've finally gotten to the movie theater a couple times in the past two weekends, after a long period of... not. Last weekend was Snakes on a Plane, which was definitely awesome, and you should see it! (Unless you are severely disturbed by snakes or particularly snakes biting people, in which case you might not want to see it.) If for no other reason, though, you should see it so that you don't find yourself as the only person in the room who hasn't see it some day.

I just got back from Evanston with Karl. We went to see Little Miss Sunshine, which is a marvelous, funny movie with very nicely done characters and a great quirky plot. As an added bonus, it includes Steve Carrell of the Daily Show and The Office. I went into the movie with not the slightest clue what to expect and I was quite pleasantly surprised. Go see. :)

On to more sordid tales...

Back in July I got two phone calls while in Vegas reporting that credit card applications had been submitted in my name, using my social security number and an incorrect apartment number. This triggered fraud alerts, and I was able to cancel the applications. I flagged my credit report and let it sit.

After returning from Vegas, our mail delivery began to be erratic as I previously mentioned, and I started to get a little nervous, but I just let it slide. Then, last week, I got notification on Monday morning of two additional credit card applications filed in my name which triggered confirmation calls due to the flag on the credit report.

If it had been just one, maybe I wouldn't have gotten so upset, but with two on the same day, I decided to take some time and did the following:

Since the mail verification has started, we have not received the proper mail delivery most days. Today we just received a package Karl had ordered and the postal service had listed as delivered on July 12th. It arrived on the 26th of August. Karl is missing two credit cards that were supposedly sent to him, and I the credit report information I was supposed to receive as a result of my report flagging.

I am absolutely certain now that someone is finding a way and taking the mail out of our mailbox after it is delivered by the postal carrier, going through it, and then putting it back several days later. They're sifting through the mail looking for credit card offers, personal details, or whatever they can get.

The police officer told me that because I haven't lost anything yet it's not too likely the case will remain open. One of the people involved with the building management doesn't seem to be convinced that it would even be possible for someone to get into our mailbox, and therefore seemed completely unwilling to consider measures that might help find out who's responsible... won't strongly consider a better setup for cameras, isn't really willing to change the mailbox locks, etc.

You'd think if this issue is widespread within this building (affecting more than just me) it would be a big deal, even if there hasn't been a major loss yet, because at some point there damn well will be. I am so damn frustrated that I am committed to making sure this case remains open as long as it takes. I am not letting this invasion into my privacy slide, and I am not letting this issue drop. :(

Friday, August 18, 2006

[Comments: 0] 2:30 AM - reptiles-with-plane-tickets

Snakes on a Plane just opened. It is perhaps the most remarkable concept for a film ever. First, because it's called "Snakes on a Plane," second, because it stars Samuel L. Jackson, and third, because that is why it is still called "Snakes on a Plane..."

It is my plan to go see this movie as soon as possible, hopefully tonight (Friday night). The number of people going to see this film simply because of what it is called is unbelievable. The original plan to rename it to "Pacific Air Flight 121" is inconcievable. I am not even sure this film will be any good, and I actually have my doubts, but I don't care. I'm going anyway, and I think that I'll be enjoying it! :)

The mail was delivered yesterday (Thursday). Last mail delivery was August 4th. No one else in the building is having this problem according to the management office... Does this make any sense to anyone? The most annoying part is that my paycheck is being delayed by this stupidity... I'm glad I am not short on cash between paychecks....

Saturday, August 12, 2006

[Comments: 1] 10:05 AM - mailboxes-etc

For the past two weeks we have received virtually no regular mail delivery. The US Postal Service has left our mailbox empty all but one day since I checked for mail two Saturdays ago. It wasn't last week until Ray went to the post office on Thursday the 3rd to inquire that we received a rubber-banded collection of all the past week's mail. The post office, however, advised Ray that there did not appear to be any mail waiting in our carrier's bin to be delivered, so we are wondering where it could possibly have gone for all that time.

Now, this week, we have again received no postal mail at all, since last Friday. None of us can fathom what could possibly be going on to prevent normal mail delivery to our mailbox, as it's certainly nothing we've done. It's impossible that we are actually receiving no mail, as we get at least one piece of junk to someone every single day. I wonder, if we do nothing, when the next time we receive mail delivery will be. If this keeps up, we're going to have to start pressuring someone to find out what's going on, because while very little vital ever ends up in our mailbox, having to wait an extra week or more for an expected item is not acceptable.

On an unrelated note, Ray and I have calculated that if we were to have cash lying around in the company, one possible secure place to store it would be the datacenter. Due to the "windy" nature of the datacenter, we figured that it could be stored in a cabinet, locked of course. Based on a rough estimate of the internal space available, 19 x 27 x 63 inches, we have determined that approximately 638,479 dollar bills should definitely fit in each cabinet. This is assuming a dollar bill is 6 inches by 2.5 inches by 0.1 millimeter, a value which we apparently approximated correctly without a ruler and Googled for verification, and that all the bills are crisp, and neatly banded and stacked. The calculations seem to suggest that our theory that one million dollar bills would fit in a cabinet does not hold true. I just thought you should know.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

[Comments: 0] 3:01 AM - useless-trick

As promised, I ditched Ubuntu and returned to my good friend Gentoo. I've been poking around and a few issues about the package management that had bothered me seem to be planned for mending, which makes me happy. I just went through last night and cleaned up the software configuration a little bit to get rid of some old junk and catch up a few packages that had been held back for various reasons. Things seem pretty stable.

This week started off with a bang, as this past weekend we did an upgrade to our shared hosting servers at work to a new version of the software and it made quite a mess. Monday was one of the busiest support days I can recall. It has been tapering off as the week is progressing, so I'm starting to be able to relax a little bit. My weekend off was not really so quiet, since I did the upgrades during the early part of that weekend and then ended up having to help deal with the aftermath during my supposed down time. Oh, well.

I have on my schedule a They Might Be Giants concert on August 25 at the Lincoln Park Zoo. I am excited to no end to finally get to see TMBG in concert, and the tickets were only $22, which is great. I promised myself I'd go if the next time they were anywhere near Chicago, and this is it. I'd really like to go with someone (or multiple people), so if it's your thing, buy tickets and let me know you'll be there. :)

I started trying to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube for no reason last night. I got fairly far with the directions I was following and pretty much understood how I got there, but then I reached the last few steps, which get the final part done, and either I couldn't follow the directions or they were wrong, because every time I tried, the cube would be slightly messed up and I'd have to undo it. It would be nice to see a step by step with explanations of why they work. I want to know how to solve the cube, not just memorize the trick... My brain's not into the level of analysis I need to do to pull that out of the existing tutorials, so I've given up for now.

I should really try to get one of my random goals completed someday... learn Dvorak, solve a Rubik's Cube... I need to be able to do something useless that impresses people (or at least makes them wonder why on earth I know how to do something that useless). ;)

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

[Comments: 1] 3:16 AM - I-hate-Ubuntu

I finally got around to putting in the new hard drives on my Windows box, reinstalling Windows XP and setting up RAID 1 (mirroring). With that set, and a bad power supply in my Linux box, I then cleaned up my Linux box, popped in a new power supply and the newly freed 120 GB hard drive.

The goal was to get Ubuntu on my Linux box.

I am now disappointed. People have been preaching the merits of binary distributions to me for a long time, and I'd finally convinced myself it was worth going back, since I didn't really need the flexibility of a source-package distribution. I was wrong.

I feel caged, I have no control over the packaging, and the packages make little sense to me. Why split something into 45 different packages when you can just build the package with the options that suit you instead? I find that I'm stuck with an older version of some things than I want, and it's non-trivial for me to consider replacing them. I can't get the temperature and fan sensors to work and my mouse believes it has 13 buttons instead of 9. I have no idea what random software changes cause these idiocies. Various packages expect random configuration files in inconsistently different places for no obvious reason. All the inner workings are obscured wherever possible and I have to install dozens of extra packages just to compile something. Why is this better!?

I'm giving it one more day. If I don't feel like it's working, I'm ditching this crap and going back to Gentoo, where I feel at home.