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Five Red Blinks

That's all my TV does when I turn it on. That's the second time in a month it inexplicably died.
Hopefully I can get it fixed before the first presidential debate tonight
UPDATE: September 30, 2004 - Noonish
The repair guy came out and replaced some high power transformer that connects to the lamp. I looked at his work log real quick & saw that it would have cost me $150 for a new lamp & $150 for the board. That $300 BestBuy 4 year extented warenty just paid for itself!
He even left me the dead part? But for future refrence the big part number sticker reads.....

Again, Dad may be going to VA Salt Lake - again

So I just found out from Dad that he's to be in SLA on Friday the First. That's right THIS friday. He'll be their for 4 days to run the gamout of heart tests/diagnostics to find out if he's elegible for a transplant.
Yay?
Of course, when he called me he was confused about when he was to be their & I immediatly felt a repeat of last time setting in. AAAHHHHHHHHHH!
So this time I called LB VA, Dr. Olson, and the Salt Lake City VA. Now that I know he's supposed to be there - I just don't know what flight he's supposed to be on. I wish the transfer office would hurry up and CALL ME BACK.
:sigh:

Ever written worthless code?

Sure you have. Well, I'm not talking about "feature trimming" - I'm refering to code written on the suposition that there was no other way to work around a daunting problem. Only to find out if you "set the proper flag" it would never had been an issue.

A while back I had a problem with a resizeable owner draw dialog - all the controls would flicker like crazy when you resized the window.
The problem was that the painting of the background was Over the controls, and then the controls would redraw themselves - thus creating flicker.
My solution was to change the way I was painting the background. Instead of BitBlt'ing the background, I would efectivly RegionBitBlt around the controls so that they would never need to redraw themseleves. I remeber being happy with myself & moved on with the project.

Fast forward to the current day when I learn that all I had to do was change the window style to clip children. d'Oh!

On the plus side, I now have a handy RgnBlt funtion ;-)

November 2004 Voting System - Version 0.0002.b

Should I vote for "Beverage"? The sign is telling me to.

Headhunters, Ugh.

I hate headhunters (I'm looking at you Atlantis) - another one called @ 4:45pm & I was forced to relive the horror of their existence. The interesting thing is that after I told her that I wasn't interested in pre-interviewing with her, she handed me off to someone else to try to pump me for information about the company I currently work for.
Ugh.

There is a personal reason for my dislike of headhunters...

So once upon a time, two employers ago, applied for a few jobs only to find out that the online listing was to a recruiting agency (a.k.a. Headhunter). I was younger and while I was bitter towards many things, that hostility had not spread to headhunters - yet.
I was asked to "pre-interview" with the headhunter to "approve" my resume. I should have known that it was slimy when they refused to validate my parking, sign some "promise" to let them know if I'm offered a position & the interviewer had absolutely ZERO idea what a programmer was.
A few days later they gleefully called me up & sent me to TWO interviews. That was a mistake.
The first company had no idea I was coming and hastily organized an interview that went bad as soon as the hiring manager said "I told them that I would be ready for interviews NEXT week."
The second company was even worse, their lobby was filled with applicants that were all sent over from the same headhunter. This is when I was first acquainted with the term "cattle call". I ended up leaving early to get back to my existing job.
When the headhunter called to send me to a third interview, I politely declined & asked them not to call me again. (a.k.a. "Shove it")

To be fair, a Completely different headhunter did get me my current Job at GameSpy - but due to the logistics of him being located 100miles away & myself arguing with him that I was perfect for the job (when he thought I wasn't) - he sent me anyways. :)

Now, whenever I get a call from a headhunter that wants to "pre-interview" me or some other BS, I politely ask them to forward my resume to the company looking to fill the position in question & allow them to decide if they want to interview me.
They usually get all huffy about that point.
My response: "if you would be so kind as to forward my resume to the employer's HR hiring manager, I'd be most appreciative"
Headhunter: "That's NOT how we do things"
Me: "Well, sorry it didn't work out" *click*

My current employment at a great company allows this luxury of honor (knock on wood). If you've got a job - I mean, why deal with the BS?
I'm the first to admit that my snobbish elitism would COMPLETELY vanish if my employment status would change for the worse - I've got baby on the way, a wife, and a couple of mortgages to deal with. I'm not stupid - you only get E.D.D. benefit checks for 6 months and it's generaly only enough to cover gas money & top ramen.

November 2004 Voting System - Version 0.0002

According to the signs in my neighborhood - "Beverage" is running for the Yorba Linda Water Board.
I feel unnaturally compelled to vote for him/her - regardless of his/her political viewpoints.
But you have to wonder, is this person running because they want the job - or is it just because s/he feels it's expected of him/her?

November 2004 voting system - Version 0.0001

Gamblers have their systems, and while I don't gamble with $$$ - I gamble with the big things in my life: The direction of our representative government, careers, sitting to close to the TV, drinking Mountain Dew, riding motorcycles (OK, it's a Vespa - it sill counts in the eyes of the DMV). You get the idea.
Here's my generalized system for choosing who/what to vote for during a public ellection... (your mileage may vary)

Propositions:
In the state of California, a proposition is an AMENDMENT to the state constitution. It's a big thing that can change a lot of other things if you're not careful.
* Is it a Bond? Vote No.
* Do I understand it? Vote No
* In the state provided voter information booklet that lists the pros/cons, if the "pro" is EMPTY - Vote No
* If you read the proposition details in the voter information booklet, and you agree with it - Vote Yes.

Political Office
* If only one person is running for the post (Judge?) Vote against, put a write in vote. Voting is about choice - how can you have choice if there is only one candidate?
* If one of the candidates is dead - vote for recently departed, their family could probably use the retirement check. You may ask "What if I like the living guy?" - Hey, while I do not agree with his job performance - it worked for Ashcroft ;-)
* Vote for the one that has the funkiest or most non-relevant job title, my favorite is "Sea Captain" for School Board. If it was "Pirate" for Treasurer- that would be even better.
* If it's an unpaid position, vote for the guy with the lowest salary existing job - s/he obviously really wants to help their community regardless of the personal cost.

Presidential Office
* TBD, I haven't seen the finely choreographed and overly rehearsed debates & remain unimpressed with the current contenders from the two main political parties. When the mudslinging heats up in late October, I'm certain that I'll be even less impressed.

However the core of my system will come down to READING THE VOTER INFORMATION HANDBOOK AHEAD OF TIME and using the power of TiVo's fast forward button to skip the political commercials just as I would those annoying bowflex commercials.

Azureus makes Bittorrent fun

http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

Dad may be going to VA Salt Lake - again

The Salt Lake City VA *may* have an open bed for dad, we find out tommorow if we're going.

Just got the Vespa service and repair manual!

Sure I won my 2003 Vespa ET2 from Target over a year ago, yes it only has 5 miles on it, and no I still don't have my California Motorcycle drivers license.
BUT THATS NOT THE POINT.
The point being that I have been unable to locate a repair manual that would cover the 2003 Vespa ET2 - except on Amazon.Co.UK. For some unexplained reason the Haynes Group never released an updated vespa manual here in the states & I ended up spending $30USD on some thing that would have cost me half that here.
And after ordering it 3 weeks ago - it's now in my grubby little hands!

(finally)

weather.com may be subject to mild inaccuracies

This morning I awoke to the sounds of wind and crashing branches. The Santa Ana's have begun their yearly blowing cycle from the inland high desert to the southern california coastline.
Not that it was unexpected, it's all part of the seasonal weather around here. For instance, next will start the hilside fires, followed my the mudslides when the rain starts - that and the local news team covering these events with titles like "StormWatch 2004" or "FireWatch 2004". But I digress.
What annoyed me was seeing my local weather report on weather.com as "winds: 5mph, Variable". That's odd, because I could have sworn that my car was bouncing all over the road on my way to work, was that wind or was it me swerving around blown over trees in my neighborhood? It was a little of both.

I guess that all the good metorologists are busy watching the huricanes this time of year.

This is MojoJojo, I am here to help you, who are in needing of help...

The spacebar on my dell laptop died, so I emailed dell support to ask for instructions on how to remove it to clean it - guessing that some bit of crud slipped underneath.
To my joy they wanted to simply send me a new one.
Thanks Dell!

However they got a little confused when my cell phone's area code didn't match up with the delivery zip code. Or, at least as one who is still taking English as a primary language, I was left confused after reading the message for the first time.

I think the Customer Service guy in India(?) should have held off on the re-explanation ;-) Unless, s/he get's paid for the word?

For optimal humor, try reading this correspondence in the voice of Mojo-Jojo from the cartoon "The PowerPuff Girls"...
-----------------------------------
Jason, thank you for providing all the relevant information.

***Please note that the zip code and the area code should match each
other. Also, please try to provide landline phone number. If you are
providing the cell number please do specify that***

Don't put Dry Ice in a Frezer

The other day I noticed that my local Albersons sold dry ice - so (much to Bren's horror) I purchased a 5lb block.
I used some of it, and without thinking about it - I put the rest in the freezer to last until the next day. Sure the dry ice is -100F & the coldest our freezer can go is *maybe* 20F, but it's still quite a bit colder than an insulated ice chest and an outside ambient air temp of 90F.
That was a big mistake. You see the extreme cold of the dry ice turned off the freezer & all the frozen items melted :(

Live, Learn, and buy new groceries.

Repair Tech: "Well you did all that I was going to do"

Yup, that's what he said when he came by & I told him about my TV problems & how I unplugged it and pugged it back in.
Me: "Isn't there anything else you can do to ensure that this does not happen again?"
(NOTE TO SELF: 'ensure' may be considered a big word - or misunderstood as a brand of dietary supplement.)
Tech: "Nope, with these TV's all you go to do is unplug them when they act up"
Me: "What if it does the same thing again"
Tech: "Unplug it"

And for that I got the 4 year extended warranty?
[insert crude profanity to express my displeasure over how this problem was not solved to my satisfaction]

Whatever happened to TVs that never needed a reboot? Those golden days will be a thing of the past - because it's only going to get worse according to this August 2004 story...
Sony Adds PS2 Chips to TVs
The original story

TV's don't crash - do they?

Yesterday I experinced what I would consider a software crash in my Sony 50" Grand WEGA LCD rear projection HDTV (KF-50WE610).
Symptoms:
* Volume control / mute button, I can change the indicators for volume & yet the volume remained constant.
* changing video input 1-6 did nothing, I was left with the same thing on the screen. Changing to input 7 (DVI) would cause the screen to go blank. changing the input to anything other than 7 would display input 1 - which had a picture
* After tuning off & on the TV, the screen would NOT turn back on & volume remained constant. (That's when I called to schedual a service appointment)
* Later that night, when I turned out the lights, I observed an odd blue glow from the TV. So I unpluged it.
* When I pluged it back in - it was good as new!

W. T. F.
it crashed & all it needed was a hard reboot? What do I do about the repair guy that's comming out on wednesday? All s/he's expecting to do is replace the lamp. I somehow doubt they'll be skilled in the art of tv firmware upgrades. It will probably be a big waist of time. :sigh:

Mostly Harmless

After reading the fifth book in the hitchhicker's guide to the galaxy trilogy (yes I know, there is a logical inconsistency with that statement) I must say that I did NOT enjoy it as much as the previous four.
It started out slow - more of a downer realy, Arthor Dent was heading home with his girlfriend & poof - she's gone & it seems that he's hopped into an alternate probable reality where she may never existed. Then he meets his daugter & things pick up a bit with the new guide. but then that ending - THAT ending that strikes at the core of my most HATED scifi plot device - had to be there. The overused plot device of which I speak with vitrol is the "never happened" episode. Those of you that remember the "Who shot JR?" thing on the TV show Dallas & how it resolved to be "just a dream" are familiar with this concept. For the rest of us that were raised on star trek or watched it with consistancy over the years you would have certainly come across it as well. Don't believe me? have you ever seen a ST:whatever episode that was "undone" because of
(1) time travel to set things right
(2) paralel universe
(3) diety like figure "reset" everything so that only one person remembers
(4) dopelgangers
(5) halucinations / dreams
Well I have - and I dispse it's (ab)use by lazy writers.
Now it is entirly possible that D.A. realized this as well - the hitchhicker's guide series are somewhat of a scifi spoof after all - but damn it - it doesn't mean I like it.
GGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!