Gecko Bloggle

This is my 600th post on this incarnation of this blog.  I had another one at Blogger for a while, and I think I have them somewhere, I’ll have to make sure they’re back in my archives.  Maybe another 15 posts or so.  Elissa is over for our quad-weekly visit and Pimms-fest.  Booze-amahol is inherent in this post.

Today my brain kinda went into neutral at work.  I got stuff done, honest.  I got to order a bunch of something that I would normally have shot down, or suspected isn’t really necessary, which translates to “I’m worried they’ll become toys.”  It’s that enough of a sort of purchase that the person at the vendor said “Oh, are these gifts for people at work, like a giveaway?”

I feel like putting stickers on them when they arrive that say “No having fun with this.”  I’m such a grump sometimes.  I’m a hardware junkie like the best of them, but sometimes I feel like people want things because it’ll be fun to have them.  Not because they’re needed for business purposes, but because they’re cool.

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Sorry folks, gotta vent.  I’ll write about the bank thing, and reading email tomorrow, probably.  Also the new podcast episode won’t play, and I can’t tell why, which is (as 3yo Tate would say “Fwustwayting.”

AGM Today.  The short version: the thing that was attempted by a person who isn’t liked (but had a little groundswell anyway for one PART of what he was trying to do) was suddenly retracted *right* before the vote, thus rendering all the stress and craziness around it totally null and void.

The Long Version: Thanks for coming out.  Thanks for suddenly making it enough about you (after telling us ALL ABOUT how it wasn’t personal at all) that you were willing to drop the whole matter when you didn’t think you could win any more.  You talked yourself into a hole instead of just letting people decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to lend their vote to what you were trying to do, and then took away the chance for anyone to actually, y’know, VOTE on the MOTION by suddenly making yourself unable to be voted down.  You didn’t want to lose, so you’d rather just not show up for the fight.  Half of the people that might have voted for you later in the evening on the 2nd topic walked out the door shortly after you pulled the rug out from under them.  I don’t blame them, and I feel sorry they didn’t feel heard.  Again.  Again.

Last year, at the AGM, I was one of the rabblerousers, and trouble-causers that you claim to be.  I got nominated from the floor at the very last moment, was accepted by acclimation, and then picked up the fight Arwen had been fighting for the previous nine months.  It was ugly, and I was being told I should quit, and that maybe I wasn’t doing it for the good of the society, and was being scolded for contacting the “higher-ups” in the Govt bodies to do something as rude as asking “can he/they/we do that?”  But when the old Executive Director and Treasurer quit within a week of each other (after getting ito a full-on flamewar with me over Xmas), I like to think I had something to do with it.  I like to think I made things uncomfortable for people who weren’t honouring our rental agreement (individual, or with the gov’t body that holds it).  Make the people who were attempting to invade my privacy and break agreements because living where I live is “A privilege, not a right.”

So, way, to go, asshat.  You actually did the *exact* opposite of what you claimed to be trying to do, so you’re either useless, or evil, and isn’t THAT what you were claiming you were trying to put an end to in the first place?

The fact that you were surprised you didn’t then get voted onto the board, that fact that you thought you had a chance, thought you had a hope, shows me how utterly disconnected from the tenancy and membership on the block you actually are.  You stole the passion, the bravery, and the energy from the people who tried to make changes last year (and to people like myself and a few others on the board, who are still trying to make changes happen).  It’s a tough fight, and we are often met with eye-rolling, deep sighs, and suggestions of mental instability.

What you’ve done over the last six months made all the dismissive actions seem totally justified.

You claim your eviction had to do with you “becoming political” last year.

I didn’t see you at the AGM last year.  I don’t remember you talking to your neighbors about the attempted (and against rental agreement) increases in rent.  You didn’t say ANYTHING until you got caught out on a basic tenet of rental housing, and they had you dead to rights, and then suddenly you wanted to hear what sorts of problems other tenants had.

A little late to the party, dude.

The new front end on the XBOX360 (that got rammed down my throat tonight before I could watch a movie) is cute and seems like it might be fun.  Much like the first 5 minutes of The Sims.  Unfortunately, unlike the Sims, there’s nothing to DO with the character/avatar thingie you just created.

Watched the Incredible Hulk ’08 tonight.  Pretty good.  Fun.  Silly.  Explodey.  Ed Norton managed to put a little bit of acting in there, and Liv Tyler managed to keep her lips from pulling all the light out of the room.  There were only a few things (clap out a chopper-fuel fire?) that happened that were along the lines of what made a bunch of engineers and artists at Relic get into a “that wouldn’t work” fight in email.

Seriously.  That argument was a lot of fun to watch.  It was due to the commercial for the film that came out in 2002, and in that commercial, a tank is picked up the gun barrel and then flung into the distance.  People were arguing that it was impossible for anyone (even Der Hulkminsterfuller) to throw a tank by the barrel like that.  It would shear off, one side of the argument said.  You’re forgetting about centripetal force, the other side said.  Gotta love any email thread with “centripetal” in it.

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Just caught a commercial for Guitar Hero World Tour (looking suspiciously like some OTHER three-piece band game by another company who simply bought the development company) but here’s the cooperative cross-over from hell:

Kentucky Friend Chicken.

Really? REALLY? Anybody’s who’s ever been passed the five-buttoned Guitar Hero controller immediately after a particularly sweaty-handed rendition of “Welcome to the Jungle” will know why this is a bad idea. Deep-fried chicken and plastic guitar buttons do NOT mix.

Waiting for the other shoe: Pizza and Wii (oh wait, THAT’S why everyone was spanging their controllers off their $3,000 plasma screens).

Of course, I routinely maw down (or is it mow down?) on licorice Goodies (which are recently GOODIER meaning more licorice and less half-crumbly candy stickettes) while sitting in front of my keyboard at work.

Oh, while doing some other stuff, I ran into a design site that has some stuff that nicely blew my mind for a good five minutes.

Part of the (literally) mind blowing Don't Play With Monkey

Oh, and in my days as a desktop technician, I’ve been called on a number of times to do data recovery for drives that have “died,” or are making horrible clicking noises. For the first time (as far as I know), someone has actually collected all the horrible click, grinding, chirping and buzzing noises hard drives make when they’re playing possum. Now, you just go to this site and listen to the various noises and weird pinging that hard drives make, and then explains what’s probably going on with the drive. (via Hack-A-Day). Might not save your data, but saves you from opening your computer case, sticking the phone in there and saying “So, is that bad?” to the guy at Best Buy.

Oh, and never ever ever EVAR take your computer to a place like Future Shop or Best Buy. Seriously, as much as we hate doing support for our friends (because of the whole “last touchies” thing, we generally don’t want to see you get screwed by some jerkwad at the store, who was selling cel phones yesterday.

And now, based on watching Canada’s Worst Driver season 4, I’ve decided that most of these people should just never drive ever again. I mean, the friends/spouses/children of these bad drivers have put them up to this, but I wonder if they can actually just plain call the cops instead, and say “Uh, yeah, you know what? Bob just shouldn’t be driving any more, like, at all.” How do these people get their licenses in the first place?

Sorta like that comedian I heard years ago, who suggested magnetic darts that you could harpoon into other cars who do stupid things, and the cops would automatically pull over anyone with three or more darts. At 10 darts, they just run you off the road.

Porches, Ferraris, and HumVees ship with two permanent darts.

HEY-O!

Oh, and if you’re in a restaurant, with your family, and you have one of those Bluetooth earpiece things in your ear?

That’s a ‘poonin’.

Cold Stares Gold stars for parenting, in which our hero wrangles a pound and a half of pot roast into an edible (and even non-life-threatening) meal, and my old job cans a few more peaches.

So, after the time change, and the kids of course not realizing the sheer joy of being able to curl up under the covers for that extra hour, we were up and at ’em.  Some coffee and scones later, and we were booked for a CanCar (the Prius, for the discerning putting-around-towner).

Off to MEC, which wasn’t open yet, so we schlepped the four or so blocks up Broadway to Main, went to some non-Googleable place for caffeine and muffins, and then meandered our way down 10th again.  Freakishly beautiful houses (many heritage ones) along 10th here.  Like crazy-awesome places that are solid stone and giant beams with yards and old trees and just plain, like, HOMES, man.  Who knew Vancouver still had ’em.  Of course, in our bubble’s-a-poppin‘ Vancouver financial venue, these places are all probably pegging in at roughly the annual salary (plus unlisted bonus) of certain executives at my last job.

So, no, we’re not buying in the area quite yet.  Ahee.  Still, nice to see that they’re not all turned into quadruplexes and condo-wanna-bes.

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So I’m using Skype 4, and the first thing that hits me is that I can’t make the window smaller than 800×500 or so.  There’s also this weird side-panel thing (highlighted in pink above) that you can’t turn off.  Make me want to minimize Skype as soon as I open it, just because it’s so humongous.

It’s like, garish, y’know?

I should maybe I could find some downloadable skins, but there don’t appear to be any.

Very strange.  Am I missing something?  Dunno.

So it’s a Saturday night, during fireworks in the West End, and I’m in a deep chair with big ol’ armrests, and I reach over for my glass of scotch (thanks, Claudia!), and I end up sitting there for about three minutes, turning the glass round and round, watching the liquid seep down the sides of the slightly squared glass, like something out of Blade Runner.

Until I notice it’s like something out Blade Runner, and remember that I started turning the glass because I’m pretty sure I saw one of those little flies go in there, and didn’t feel like ingesting another no-see’em today (I swallowed one during the bike ride home about a week ago, and so I’m good for a bit, mmkay?)

Where was I?  Oh yeah, bending my head a little tonight, that’s right, I forgot.

I need to relax about my kids.  They’re kids, and they’re being kid-like.  Doesn’t matter how refined and and high-strung the West End is, my kids are being KIDS.  They’re six (going on fourteen) and two (going on three), and I just need to chill out and let them be kids.  Yes, they make noise, and get stuff on their faces, and drop things, and knock stuff over, and are just generally little human beings trying to figure out how to have fun and do things they wanna do.  Who am I to mess with that when they’re not hurting anyone?

So yeah, more going to the park, and less “shushing” on my part.  Really nothing to be gained, there, if the truth be told.

So what brought this up?  A new (to me) album by some guy named Tom Baxter, by way of Radio Paradise.  Tom Baxter sounds (almost too much) like the lead singer of Elbow, with a healthy dose of Damien Rice in there, too.  I hit AllMusic.com, and looked up Mr. Baxter (and queued up some Damien Rice and was reminded how much I heart Lisa Hannigan’s deliciously overwrought vocals – she manages to come dangerously close to the shark-jumping ranges of Tori Amos, but missing it somehow), AND THEN read the blurb about him (Tom Baxter, remember him?) and his latest album, Skybound

There was a popular term slung around in British music-critic circles a few years back, “dad rock.” That is, anything that middle-aged men could point to in an attempt to prove that they were still as hip and with it as they had been when they were teens, and which they mostly liked because it was so baldly derivative of what they liked when they were teens. Wilco, for example, is probably the ultimate dad-rock act, with Coldplay not far behind.

and I thought “This?  This is dad-rock?” but after reading a little further along, there’s a slightly snooty reference to Tom Baxter’s stuff being “mom-rock” in counterbalance to bands like Coldplay.  Seriously, the review reads sorta like one of those “It works, don’t act like you invented it” kinda comments.  There’s just a hint of “How come this guy’s album is selling, and I’m stuck writing reviews on AllMusic.com?”

Yeah, so I’m sitting around listening to a largely acoustic album, and not listening to the idiots who went to the fireworks six hours early, and are now bombed, and staggering home with their sunburns and aggression, and thinking I… uh… like this album.  Not quite in the same jaw-dropping way I responded to Damien Rice’s stuff, or the way I was floored by the wall of clangy angst I felt with Elbow’s first album, but hey, nice stuff.  This album makes me wanna sit here and write, instead of getting out on the porch, and yelling “Yeah, yeah, flashy light go boom, now GO HOME!” at the drunks and tourists who are flabbergasted that anyone actually LIVES down here, where there might be, y’know, THE GAYS.

(Didja know you can italicize a period?  Well you can.)

So go pick up a copy, and grab a few for your moms and dads out there, and let them decide whether it’s sexist or misogynist or somehow stereotypical to enjoy it.

Or maybe I’m just buzzed from the scotch (or is it “Scotch?”)

Pretty sure I didn’t eat a bug though, so, win-win, really.

(Thanks to Cheeseblog, who first told me about Radio Paradise, WAY back when Napster was a thing, not an example.)

Okay, riddle me this, Apple Fans:

Let’s say I have a list of 26 songs (let’s call them “A” through “Z”) in iTunes, and I want to select *some* of them. I click on the beginning of my selection (let’s say “L”) hold down shift, and start cursoring down to select “M, N, O, P” and keep going until I hit “S,” but through the magic of poor reflexes, I actually go one more line to “T.” I now have L throught T selected in a highlighted range that’s one more file than I wanted.

With me so far?

So, everyone think about what you would like to THINK would be the way to unselect the T track. Don’t answer me yet. Just keep it in your head for a second.

I, as a old fogey user of Paperclip, Geos, Windows, OpenOffice, WP51Dos, and freakin’ Nano user do the following:

Keeping the shift key down, I hit cursor up.

Can someone PLEASE explain to me why the range increases above my current selected range, to now include K? T is still selected.

Really? K? That’s what people tend to do? Click somewhere in the middle of the range they want to select and then hit cursor-up/down to select in both directions? REALLY?

I mean, c’mon. Who asked for that?

Maybe it’s only in iTunes under Windows, but somehow I doubt it.

And I’m looking at you too, Microsoft/Logitech.

F-Lock. F-Lock?

Let’s make the default of the function keys something OTHER than their normal response? BRILLIANT! A round of Nobel prizes, for my FRIENDS who came up with this. Thanks so much for dooming 5 years worth of my fellow technicians to having to hit F-Lock (to put the functions keys BACK to their initial setting) and then F1, F2, F6, F8, or F11 to choose their boot/setup options.

Oh, and you have to do that during the two seconds of the POST (Power On. See? Tease!) when you’re allowed to do anything other than go back into Windows again.

Pfft. F-lock. I mean, really.