LiveJournal for The Captain. View: User Info. View: Friends. View: Calendar. View: Website (My Home). View: Memories. You're looking at the latest 20 entries. Missed some entries? Then simply jump back 20 entries.

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Subject: People are so weird. Time: 10:15 pm. Mood: confused.

In the wake of the Michael Jackson thing a bit of morbid curiosity came over me, given that within an hour of his death MTV was listing him as the most-downloaded artist of the day. So I dropped by the local Coconuts new/used music store just to see what the atmosphere was like, and also thinking if I could pick up Thriller used for under $10 I would. When I got there, the clerk asked if I was looking for anything in particular, and I felt like asking for MJ was crass so I wussed out and said no and just started browsing. As I browsed I realized I hadn't been in a traditional music store in ages, because the (also) traditional 3-tiered shelves felt very old-fashioned. Anyway, after a few minutes, I heard the clerk talking about Jackson with another woman, so I gravitated to where they were standing among the racks to take a look. I got there just in time to watch as the woman leaned down and swept up every CD and DVD in two of the the three tiers of the rack. Yes, friends, in one swoop she grabbed their entire inventory of Michael Jackson and carried it up to the register, asking if she could bring some of them back if it turned out she already had it at home. Needless to say I didn't walk out with a copy of Thriller. Only in America could a poor black boy grow up to be a rich white man.

Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

Subject: Influential Books Meme Time: 11:00 pm. Mood: calm.

Take no more than 15 minutes to produce a list of 15 books that have influenced you in style, ideas, relationships, language, or other ways that you find important, and/or books that have really stayed with you -- you keep thinking of that quote, you are always remembering that character, you are frequently reminded of that moment.... that kind of thing. This is not a favorites list. (stolen from slipjig) BTW, these aren't in any kind of order... Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien The Belgariad , David Eddings The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman The Secret of the Old Clock, Carolyn Keene All the President's Men, Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein Microserfs, Douglas Coupland The Warrior's Apprentice, Lois McMaster Bujold American Gods, Neil Gaiman Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson Small Wonder, Walter Henry Nelson Garfield: His 9 Lives, Jim Davis Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl Katy and the Big Snow, Virginia Lee Burton Jennifer and Josephine, Bill Peet Okay, it took a bit more than 15 minutes to make the list and build the Amazon links. And I managed to reach back to childhood for a couple. What's yours?

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject: Be Careful What You Order Time: 10:45 pm. Mood: dorky.

So, one of the local Dunkin' Donuts has a woman who likes to write your coffee order on the styrofoam cup with a black marker. This of course leads to many opportunities for humor. In the case of one of my coworkers, she likes her coffee with cream, extra sugar, and french vanilla flavoring. Which gets written like this: FV C XS Of course, the V is written sloppily so it looks a lot more like a U, and if you still don't see the joke, try pronouncing it out loud. But not too loud, if you're at work. Anyway, things deteriorated from there, with the end result that we were very tempted to all go to that Dunkin's drive-thru and say, "I want some of that fuckin' coffee, bitch!"

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject: Rehabilitating Hartnell Time: 10:30 pm. Mood: contemplative.

When I became a Doctor Who fan, I tried to consume as much of the show as I could get my hands on. Much of this was out of order, a Davison followed by a Pertwee followed by a Tom Baker. And like all DW fans, I put together my personal ordered list of Doctors. This would ebb, flow, and convulse from time to time -- during part of 1993 I actually claimed Colin Baker as my favorite for some reason I still don't fully grasp today. But in the wake of the Fox movie, my "Doctor List" looked something like this: 1. Tom Baker 2. Patrick Troughton 3. Jon Pertwee 4. Colin Baker 5. Peter Davison 6. Paul McGann 7. Sylvester McCoy 8. William Hartnell Tom and Pat traded top spots on my list a lot. Especially when Tomb of the Cybermen was recovered. Part of it is my iconoclastic nature -- everyone loves Tom so having him not be first was something between a protest vote and an attempt to show I was hip because I didn't toe the fandom line. But part of it is that I just really liked Troughton's Doctor. Tom's Doctor is great, but is at times overbearing and too self-confident (most of the first episodes I saw with Tom were from Season 17). Tom would walk onto a scene and piss off people by acting in charge, but Pat would piss people off by playing something between obsequious and dumb. Another reviewer described it as giving the bad guys enough rope in the hopes they'll realize they're about to hang themselves. I'm willing to believe there is also a certain romance involved with the whole Missing Episode thing. So much of his tenure was destroyed, and so much of what's left was from Season 6 which was very grab-ass since so many of the original scripts fell through that it seemed like he wasn't getting a fair shot. That some of the partially retained stories like The Evil of the Daleks and The Web of Fear happened to have episodes intact that are really quite good helps a lot. Plus, The War Games was just so epic and was such a hinge for the series. And having arguably the best companion ever -- Jamie -- didn't hurt at all. Well, now we're almost 20 years on since I first heard of the show, and through the miracle of the Loose Cannon reconstructions I've had a chance to experience several stories that have been otherwise lost -- both for Hartnell and for Troughton. And I've noticed an amazing thing. If I sit down and decide I want to watch an old DW I haven't seen before (which by default means one of the "recons") I find myself gravitating to, and highly enjoying, old Hartnells! As much padding as there is in the 12-part The Dalek Masterplan, it's still an enjoyable story. The same for The Reign of Terror. There is just something about Hartnell's performance that is so very watchable. Aloof, yes, but (usually) not smug, and highly principled. I used to write his crotchety and otherwise understated performance as a function of his developing symptoms of MS, and to some extent I think this is visible toward the middle of 1966 when he was getting sick enough and the shooting schedule was brutal enough that he needed to be written out of large swaths of stories (The Celestial Toymaker and The Tenth Planet especially) because he was too weak to come in that week. (That he disagreed with the direction John Wiles and Innes Lloyd were taking the series didn't help, I'm sure.) But from early 1965 to early 1966 he's very much in command of his character. Tom Baker once shambled into a table read after a liquid lunch and lit into a writer (who later script edited Blakes 7) slurring that any idiot could recognize that he of all people knew best what The Doctor would or would not do or say. But Hartnell was making the same argument in 1965 at a time when the star of the show was still primarily the Daleks, not The Doctor. That Hartnell would only ever give a nod and a wink to the audience during the Christmas Day broadcast in 1965 -- which was a well-established BBC tradition at the time, by the way -- gives him an understated quality. So although my list may change as soon as I hit the post button, I'm rather astounded to say that my Classic Doctor List at this moment looks like this: 1. Tom Baker 2. William Hartnell 3. Patrick Troughton 4. Jon Pertwee 5. Sylvester McCoy 6. Peter Davison 7. Colin Baker 8. Paul McGann

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

Subject: Pimp Time: 9:00 pm.

slipjig is preparing a Worst Movie Evar poll. Feel free to nominate and follow along here!

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject: I am still a wiseass, even without the wisdom teeth. Time: 10:15 pm. Mood: sore.

After $EMPLOYER executed a round of layoffs at the end of March, I decided maybe I should stop procrastinating and take advantage of the fact that a) I have decent insurance, and b) my health insurance deductible for the year has already been satisfied, while I knew I still had said insurance. Two years ago I ditched the HMO plan for a PPO plan, which has the benefit of not requiring a PCP referral for every little thing. I thought that might streamline the process. *BZZT!* I may not need a referral, but for everything there winds up being an "initial consultation" visit. This started with my complaining to my PCP about sleep issues I've been having. This begat an appointment to an Ear/Nose/Throat guy, which I had to wait three weeks for. This was basically 20 minutes filling out new patient paperwork and then 8 minutes talking with the doctor, who spent a grand total of 30 seconds actually examining me. He then sent me on to a Sleep Doctor for a Sleep Study, where again I am waiting three weeks for another "initial consultation". I already know I need the damn sleep study, why do I need to have another 8 minute visit with a third doctor who will nod and say, "you're right, you need a sleep study"??? Same thing on the dental side. I grew to hate my old dentist's office, to the point that I backslid on taking care of my teeth. I switched offices and it's been night and day. The old place goes out of its way to hang signs and have phone messages about how they are customer focused, but in reality they are not and even when I had the first appointment of the day I had to sit in the waiting room for half an hour. Whereas the new guys have no such signs or messages, and in fact are customer focused, and even late in the day I've waited less than ten minutes. Which is great, except the only oral surgeon in the area that my insurance covers is at the office I left. So, I had to have an initial consultation with my new dentist for them to nod and say "You're right, your wisdom teeth need to come out", in order for me to have another initial consultation with the actual oral surgeon, which was literally a five minute visit (after a 35 minute wait, of course) where he looked at the X-Rays and literally said, "You're right, these teeth need to come out". He never actually looked at my mouth at all. Never mind that I actually had a consultation with the same surgeon already back in 2005, I had to do it again. Which on the surface I could accept except I really cannot imagine a scenario where he would decide four years ago that the teeth should be extracted but now four years later they would magically no longer need to come out. This has convinced me that part of the reason health insurance is so expensive is because the doctors soak the insurance company for what is essentially a totally unnecessary office visit, knowing full well that if I had to pay out of pocket for someone to pull that kind of stunt I would probably burn their office to the ground. But, since I can't do a lot about that... This oral surgeon visit was Wednesday at 9am. So when I asked about scheduling, I figured I'd be waiting until July or something. So I about fell out of the chair when he said, "Well, I have an opening tomorrow at 11am." And of course, the front office asshats had to make things difficult. Obviously I couldn't commit to the appointment if I couldn't get the day off, and getting the day off meant having to go to work to fill out the time off paperwork, and they refused to "pencil me in" for the hour it would take me to get the time approved. This office, btw, has a sign that says "FOR SAFETY REASONS TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE". Given that I also cannot conceive of how a cell phone creates a safety hazard in a waiting room, there is nothing I would put past these guys. To make a long story short ("Too late!!") my lovely wife drove me down this morning and the oral surgeon did a very good job with the IV needle and the whole thing was done in about an hour. He may actually be the only person in that office I would call competent. And I was able to use sick time at work so I didn't burn any vacation days. So, I have a weekend of relatively forced inactivity hepped up on Vicodin with a Tylenol sidecar and a Penicillin VK chaser. Even with the drugs it's still sore -- especially the bottom set -- but even now it's less so than 6 hours ago, so hopefully by this time tomorrow I won't need the extra analgesic. Now it's just a question of whether I'll be able to sleep worth a damn...

Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

Subject: Bowtie! Time: 10:20 pm. Mood: quixotic.

So, we have an interesting relationship with our upstairs neighbors. Those of you with long memories will recall them as the ones I had to call the cops on a couple years back. They're about 8 years younger than we are and a lot more blue collar than we are. He and his buddies all have pickup trucks that they work on and dick around with. In the summer he drives in a local car racing circuit, I'm not sure whether it's stock car or demolition derby from the look of the cars that are sometimes in front of the building on Sundays. Anyway, tonight's nice enough that we have the windows open, and one of his buddies was leaving, except his truck wouldn't start. Now, I laugh to myself at this point, because I figure that if they didn't fuck with their engines they'd probably be more reliable. But I don't say anything because, you know, open window. The guy tries to start the truck for about a minute and it's just grinding and not catching at all. Finally, our neigbor shouts out his window: "Next time get a goddamn Chevy!" so I guess this friend of his has a Ford. Finally though the truck starts, as our neighbor and his girlfriend are both laughing at him. As he pulls out of the driveway, our neigbor shouts "BOWTIE!" at him. Sometimes, entertainment comes from unexpected places.

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

Subject: Putting Classic Doctor Who In Perspective Time: 9:45 pm.

So, at the end of January Lari and I had the chance to play host to rafaela and slipjig at Babci's house. This gave me the first opportunity to be geeky about Doctor Who in person with someone for the first time in ages. Especially oldschool DW. Anyway, we watched "The Caves of Androzani" and "The Romans" and had some cool discussion about the series including Most Attractive Companion. This gave me a chance to advance my theory, which is in essence, if you grew up with the show, your favorite companion is most likely to be the companion you were watching when you went through puberty. My unscientific polling to this point has supported this fairly well. Because of the different ways the two of them have come to the series, it was interesting to get the difference in perspective from someone who is coming to the old series from the new series. And that made me think a lot about how much the series changed, especially between 1963 and 1983. In 1963, the show was aimed very seriously as a children's quasi-educational adventure program -- which was in itself a break from the way shows for that age group were treated up to that time. It was shot exclusively in-studio on bulky, expensive, 2" wide open-reel videotape which at the time cost £500 ($9400 in 1997 US Dollars) for a 30-minute spool. Productions were written and staged with the optimum number of characters so that when the episode was committed to tape, it was done in scene sequence so the videotape recorder was started and stopped the fewest number of times possible. Electronic editing was not yet possible -- you could stop the tape and then re-start it between scenes but it wasn't frame-accurate; if something went wrong at the end of the scene you rewound the tape to the start of the scene and did the whole thing over. Making a change to the program after it was recorded and "in the can" meant cutting the tape with a razor blade and taping it back together -- meaning that the spool could never be re-used for another program. And given the extreme expense of the videotape, whenever possible the tapes were routinely recycled. As the series flourished, it pushed the limits of the growing and expanding technology. Some location footage began to be shot on 16mm film and then played back in-studio during production. In 1966, when Innes Lloyd made the bold step of recasting the role of the Doctor, the production team wasn't sure how to handle the change over on-screen. Serendipitiously, one of the video switchers (vision mixers, in BBC parlance) in the studio that week was malfunctioning -- one of its video inputs would bleed into white when used -- which provided the exact effect director Derek Martinus was looking for. And when the series jumped to "colour" in 1970, producer Barry Letts encouraged his directors to take advantage of then-revolutionary Chromakey (CSO in BBC parlance) to stretch beyond what had been done before. In 1974, the series produced a two-part serial ("The Sontaran Experiment") recording it entirely on location and entirely on videotape -- a first for the series in both respects. Electronic editing also evolved, along with the primary medium used for recording the show changed from the very heavy 2" tape to the slightly lower-quality but more forgiving 1" tape format, so that by the series end it was recorded almost entirely out of scene order. Another factor to consider is the workload placed upon the production staff over time. In 1963, the series was conceived as running almost continuously -- 42 weeks from 11/23/63 to 9/12/64, finally shrinking in 1970 to 25 weeks, and then to 14 weeks in 1986. In this post-MTV era it's frieasy to take for granted things like quick cuts and fast-moving stories, but if you think about the intense pressure the production team was under to crank out material for almost an entire year when the series began, that puts a premium on keeping costs low. This encourages fewer sets and more dialog to keep within a BBC budget. All of this is why I sometimes rankle at the complaints of new fans who decide to sample a Hartnell historical. Largely, they do it without context and appreciation of what the show was meant to be at the time. This is excacerbated by the fact that 23 stories made between 1966 and 1969 no longer exist in their original format. A quick recap, for those who don't know: When the BBC finished broadcasting a show, it would decide whether it would be made available for worldwide redistribution. These shows would be passed to BBC Enterprises, who would make a 16mm film copy of the original 2" videotape and then offer the program for sale. The BBC would then retain the original tape for a time, then erase it and use it to record another show. (Remember, at almost $10k a piece, keeping every episode of every show ever made would tie up an enormous amount of money in a vault somewhere!) Due to concerns that the BBC could build up a library of shows and then stop making new ones, the actors' union put severe restrictions on how and when a program could be rebroadcast (ie, shown as a rerun) and there was no syndication market in Britain for such programming. This was excacerbated by the BBC license fee -- when Americans bought color TVs they shoved the old B&W set in the basement, bedroom, etc. But because you paid per-set, when Brits bought colour TVs they threw their B&W sets in the trash, and in turn demanded colour programming to match. So, between contracts and demand, after a time BBC Enterprises was left with vaults and vaults of B&W negatives and prints that it could not sell to other stations even if they wanted to and the eraserheads in charge in the '70s could not perceive of any financial reason to keep this old stuff around. If anything they had every reason to do the opposite to reduce operational costs. So BBC Enterprises began throwing the film away -- negatives, prints, and all. This went on until 1978 when superfan Ian Levine managed to get legal clearances to obtain copies of DW episodes for his private collection, and found his way to one of the vaults only to find a stack of cans containing the first Dalek story ready to be sent to the dumpster. His outrage at discovering this triggered the BBC to re-evaluate its (non-existent) retention policies. Since the story of how this happened broke within fan circles there has been some revisionist history -- the BBC likes to claim that BBC Enterprises was supposed to act as the BBC's archive, but there was nothing of that sort in the company's charter or contracts and besides that, when the British Film Institute asked if the BBC wanted to contribute to their film archive, the BBC sent them some stuff that just happened to be sitting around without any real rhyme or reason; if the Beeb was serious about archival they would have either arranged for the BFI to simply take their unwanted stock as it became unmarketable, or have pointed the BFI to BBC Enterprises at that time. Of course, this affected more than just Doctor Who and to a much greater degree, many '60s BBC series were completely wiped out. In addition, DW sparked enough interest from the very beginning that even though domestic VCRs were more than a decade away, savvy fans were hooking up their reel-to-reel audio tape players to their televisions as early as the 13th week of the series -- little knowing that in some cases they were literally saving episodes from total oblivion. This was aided by a photographer who was commissioned to take pictures of episodes of various British series as they were broadcast, as a way for actors and directors to obtain publicity photography to go with their resumes, which have come to be called "telesnaps". Well, since these tapes and archives of telesnaps have begun to circulate in fan hands and home video technology has improved, fan groups have been creating episode "reconstructions" -- taking the original audio recording and matching it with telesnaps, publicity photos, and whatever film clips exist (some people were pointing their 8mm movie cameras at their TVs and recording DW snippets as early as 1963) to give a flavor of the action and visuals of the story. One group in particular, Loose Cannon, will use actors and props as well as photo montages (Photoshopping) including returning to original locations to recreate scenes. Since January, I discovered a new wave of episode reconstructions on bittorrent. I've been fortunate enough to say that I have every extant episode of the series, old and new, and within the next week I will have reconstructions of the rest, so I will be able to claim I've at least heard every episode of Doctor Who ever made. I'm excited about this, of course, but it also rekindles some of the anger I felt as a teenager when I discovered the chain of stupidity that caused the episodes to be lost in the first place. Especially with certain stories. As an example, "Galaxy Four" is a decent but fairly pedestrian story apart from having the villains be women. "The Tenth Planet" has enough plot holes to drive a TARDIS through. But then there are stories like "The Power of the Daleks" and "The Evil of the Daleks" which from the story and what's left of the visuals could have easily contended for the Best Story mantle had all the film prints survived. And that's what really makes me sad, not just that there are these shows that don't exist anymore but that there are these great examples of storytelling that cost a fair amount of money to make (despite the jokes about how cheap the BBC was/is) that are now nearly inaccessible to fandom at large, let alone the general public. Of course, on the backside of this is the fact that I really don't have any DW fans nearby who are rarified enough that I feel they would be able or willing to appreciate the reconstructions enough to merit a group screening. Maybe someday...

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject: Browser Reversion Time: 10:45 pm. Mood: annoyed.

After trying two different motherboards and not having any luck with 8x AGP video, I fell back on the voltage issue. Half the reason I decided to ditch my MSI K8N Neo Platinum board was due to the low -12v and -5v readings I consistently got with two different power supplies. On a hunch I tried swapping in the brand new supply I had for the nonlinear editor. Surprise! That cleared up the voltage problem. But it didn't fix the 8x AGP issue. I thought long and hard about it and decided to let the computer win. As long as the voltages were okay and the caps were good, I decided I didn't give a shit about 8x AGP anymore as long as the system ran like a rock at 4x. I'm done playing chickenshit games with five year old technology but I've spent too much money since November to replace all of it with something new. So I bought another new power supply and successfully installed Windows XP. I won't go into my attempt at slipstreaming SP3 into my install disc except to say that Windows Update wouldn't acknowedge it as Genuine. Assholes. Of course, this leaves me with a pile of would-be replacement Athlon 64 kit I have absolutely no use for, but hey, I have a system I trust again. For now anyway. Since I now have XP running on 2 of 3 machines I decided to install both Firefox 3 and IE 7. And I've decided I hate them both. The way IE7 imposes toolbar organization chaps my ass in a way that almost outdoes the utility of tab support. That FF3 seems to take cues from IE7 is not at all endearing. But I found an add-on that recreates the Firefox 2.x skin, and that has me pretty happy. And now I'm starting to wonder if a similar skin exists for IE7 or if it doesn't, whether I can revert to IE6.

Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

Subject: Pimp Time: 10:00 pm.

So, if you haven't seen in at least three other journals, slipjig is doing a movie poll. Add your list to get things started!

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

Subject: Computer Update Time: 11:30 am. Mood: frustrated.

I had planned to take the money I received at Christmas and basically throw a chunk of it at my computers in the hopes that I might finally make the problems go away. This slow burn since October is past the point of being something I can just ignore or work around. I need my systems to be reliable so I can get on with my life. At this point, I'm 3 for 4. I picked up 512MB of RAM for my trusty IBM 300PL Linux server, to max it out at 768MB. I've got her stretched to the limit now, I know, but she does everything I ask of her so I'm happy to not fix what ain't broke. And KDE under OpenSUSE doesn't lag anymore. I also picked up a gig of RAM for my Inspiron 8200 -- doubling what I had before. That seems to have made XP pretty happy. I also ditched my NetGear PCMCIA wireless card which was dropping connection so frequently and severely that I basically stopped using the Laptop when I wanted to be online -- unless I was using the docking station and therefore on a hardline. I scored a Dell TrueMobile 1470 MiniPCI card, which does combo a/b/g. So far it's been solid as a rock even in the kitchen -- essentially the far side of the apartment from the antenna. I think having the antenna built into the laptop itself helps. Getting drivers up and running was a little sticky since the Dell driver installer refused to run (my older laptop isn't "supported" for this newer hardware) but I managed to pull what I needed out of the package. In addition, I finally sucked it up and replaced the underpinnings of my nonlinear editing system. Gone is the dual P3-750 system, now run by an Intel Core2Duo 2.4gHz system on a Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L board. It is faaaaast. The only hitch here is that I had to upgrade the power supply in the case again. First it was for the extra 4-pin power, now this new board uses ATX-24. I thought I could be clever and pick up a new cheap case, use the new power supply for the new system, and use the case to build up my spare parts to sell out as a turnkey editing system. Except whoops, the case doesn't support full-length PCI cards and my original editor hardware has two of them. But the headache and the heartache remains my daily use PC. I picked up an FIC K8-800T motherboard which was supposed to be compatible with my existing RAM and Athlon 64 3000+ processor. It would boot, but it would never install Windows XP. It would either BSOD or else come up without detecting the keyboard and mouse, and also never reported that I had DDR 400 RAM. Oh well, it was only $18 for the mobo anyway and I'm trying to invoke the return policy on it. Turns out it was some kind of OEM board so I can't flash the BIOS or anything either. So then I spent $36 to pick up an MSI board which uses the same VIA chipset as the FIC board, but it actually did take a BIOS flash and shows the right DDR clock. Windows installed well enough, too. Except I'm still having the same problem with the video. The system will run great for about two minutes, then the screen goes black and the system hangs. And again only in AGP 8x. If I put in my AGP 4x card it works awesome. But I kind of need the TV out on my Radeon 9600. I've also tried DDR 266 and 333 RAM, which does not help, so it's not the memory. Given that the old motherboard was nVidia chipset and this is VIA, it's not strictly a chipset problem either. So this narrows things down to two possibilities... 1) Whatever caused my old nVidia video card to go south did something permanent to the motherboard which in turn did something permanent to the Radeon 9600, or... 2) There's something wrong with the Athlon 64 chip. At this point I've eliminated every other possibility I can think of. And although #2 seems unlikely, here's why I'm starting to suspect it: When I installed the Athlon 64 originally in the old motherboard, I spent a lot of money on a Zalman heatsink/fan. When I went to remove said fan, I discovered it would wobble slightly against the chip. Which leads me to suspect that for a period of time now the heatsink was not achieving full physical contact with the CPU. So I wonder if part of the CPU has overheated thoroughly enough to degrade some of its function. It feels like a longshot but I know the Clawhammer processors generated a huge amount of heat and I know that heatsink wasn't secure. If I could go back three weeks to when I placed my NewEgg order I guess I would suck it up and buy a new mobo, CPU, and RAM for it too, but I'm pretty far down this road of repair vs. replace on this machine. Any thoughts?

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject: Let's Start A Meme! Time: 8:55 pm. Mood: irritated.

I'd like to start a meme. This is based on my desire to have a pseudoconstructive outlet for frustration and I think it would be cool to see other people take it up. Here we go: This is the Name Three Companies game. If you suddenly, unexpectedly had the power to snap your fingers and obliterate any company on the planet, and you could do it three times, who would you pick, and why? Include at least one reason for each. 1. UPS. If UPS ran "the tightest ship in the shipping business" as their old motto claimed, then the shipping business is in a world of hurt. Most of my frustrations with them revolve around how utterly undependable their drivers are in upstate NY and how reprehensible the workflow is for their local morning shift. My driver never, ever comes by at the time twice. One day it's before 2. Next day it's after 6. Then for some reason he's at my door at 10:30. They won't even give me a time range when they leave a door tag. They just circle tomorrow's date. Guys, I can't take the whole day off work to sit and wait for you. Plus, when I request for the package to be left at the pickup counter, fully half of the time it gets put on the damn truck anyway the next morning. Guys, you need to read the exception report BEFORE you load the truck. DHL is leaving the US market, why?? 2. BP Capital Management, and any other company run by T. Boone Pickens. In the mid-80s, Pickens was part of a company called Desert Partners, who were corporate raiders. Their hostile takeover attempt of United States Gypsum (USG) nearly drove the company into bankruptcy, and gave my father no end of worries as to whether he would still have a job when it was all over. All due to naked greed without even the bad excuse of finding some kind of corporate synergy. I would pay $100 to kick Mr. Pickens square in the nuts, even to this day. 3. Verizon Wireless. Companies should not be allowed to stitch together smaller parts without actual integration plans. Because when Bell Atlantic Mobile, NYNEX Mobile, AirTouch, PrimeCo, and GTE Mobilnet came together in 1999, they remained (and from what I can tell still are) five separate backoffice systems that simply all use one common name. When I moved, I could not seamlessly transfer from GTE Mobilnet country to Bell Atlantic Mobile country. They couldn't even transfer a credit balance, I had to wait SIX WEEKS for a check to be cut when I moved and I signed up for a new two year deal when I did that! Not to mention that customer service has an entirely different featureset from region to region as far as what they will and won't do for you. Then when they offer you upgrades, the rules and caveats are so byzintine that I don't think the reps even understand how to navigate them all. People tell me customer service with Sprint sucks, but let me tell you, since I switched I haven't needed customer service. Okay, that's my three. Wanna play?

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

Subject: As The PC Turns, Episode III Time: 10:00 am. Mood: annoyed.

So, here's the latest on the saga of my daily PC. I've isolated my performance issue to activating AGP 8x on the motherboard. If I force the Radeon 9600 to AGP 4x it works fine and the machine is rock solid -- even with the dozens of hardware-induced crashes I've had since this began. Hooray for system integrity! I'm still unable to get video overlay to work under Win2K but I'm also convinced that is a driver issue and stepping up to XP will put that to bed. Speaking of XP, on Tuesday morning I finally tried installing the copy I got from eBay. HA-ha. It gets to 11% complete and craps out copying driver.cab. If I try to read it from a working system the disc will spin for 45 seconds before eventually identifying itself as a Windows CD, but the setup screen never appears. So I have a defective CD. How nice! At least the seller will replace the media so I'm not screwed there, just set back another week and a half. As a follow-up, I had previously mentioned concern regarding one of the voltages on the mainboard. I got a chance to look over the motherboard on Wednesday while trying one last time to get XP to install. There are two caps seated very near the AGP slot that have slightly bulged tops, which appear to be identical to the failed caps I pulled from my WAP. They're sort of in that don't-look-normal-but-don't-look-that-bad-either state though. I don't know what to do about this. On the one hand, I feel skilled enough that I can do two caps with minor effort. On the other hand, if I screw the pooch I'll toast the motherboard. On the one hand, if the system runs at AGP 4x I could leave it alone. On the other hand, since I'm pretty confident this issue borked my old video card (granted, it did take three years) I'm loathe to turn a blind eye to it. I could replace the board, but given the age of the components I would have to either shop carefully for something that'll still take my AMD Athlon 3000+ and DDR1 memory or else upgrade it all -- which I was trying to do with my editor before the everyday machine became a money pit. I don't relish the thought of ground-up rebuilds of two different machines. ARGH.

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

LiveJournal for The Captain. View: User Info. View: Friends. View: Calendar. View: Website (My Home). View: Memories. You're looking at the latest 20 entries. Missed some entries? Then simply jump back 20 entries.