K-Squared Ramblings

Details, please?

Excerpt from a recent Food Allergy Alert:

Sunny Lake Trading, Inc. is recalling 10-oz. plastic bags of “Candy” because they contain undeclared peanuts.

Gotta love their marketing scheme. “I’d like to buy some candy, please.”

It reminds me of those long-distance phone companies with names like “The Cheapest One.”

Telemarketer Scum

Yes, the American Teleservices Association is suing over the do-not-call list.

The ATA estimates that the do-not-call list will cost as many as 2 million U.S. telemarketing jobs, wiping out almost a third of its industry.

Sounds like a good start.

Maybe they can get jobs that don’t involve annoying the hell out of people in their own homes.

Spam is a problem because it’s pervasive. There are no limits on how many messages one business can send, and very little in the way of entry barriers. If outside controls (societal, legal, or technological) leave it unchecked, it really can destroy email as a useful means of communication. (Consider getting 500 spams with one order confirmation somewhere in the middle.)

Telemarketing does have limits. Even with recorded messages, it takes time to make the call. There’s usually a limited number of outgoing phone lines. And if they’ve got live people making the calls, they can only make as many calls as they have people - and people need paychecks and space to work.

No, the problem with telemarketing is that it’s invasive. The phone just screams for attention, interrupting whatever you’re doing. You can choose when to check your email, or your postal mailbox, but the telephone wants you to answer it now, and even if you choose not to, it keeps ringing until your answering machine takes the call or the caller gives up.

Telemarketers don’t just try to reach you at your mailbox, front door, or living room. They are the only form of advertising I know of that reaches into the bedroom - even when you’re asleep.

And yet these scumbags are defending their “right” to interrupt you while you’re eating dinner, or reading a book, or watching TV. They want to be able to wake you up when you’re sleeping in on Saturday. If you have a cell phone, they can get you at the grocery store. They can get you on your lunch break. Someone can start jabbering about resort condos while you’re in line for Space Mountain.

That’s not protected speech. It’s harassment.

Paradox Spam

From the things-that-make-you-wonder department: “Teenage webcams! Adults only!”

Borg: The Musical

I dreamed I went to an audition for Borg: The Musical. I swear, it was messed up enough for Something Positive.

Hazard. Trip Hazard.

While the stage hands were setting up for the Alanis Morissette concert last night, we noticed a sign on the stage that looked like this:

As far back as we were sitting, we couldn’t read the words, (although “Caution” was obvious, and since it was next to a bundle of cables and showed an off-balance stick figure, the meaning was clear) but it stayed up during the show, and eventually the cameras caught it in the background, and we could read it.

At that point, or possibly after the end of the song, I leaned over to Katie and remarked, “You know, ‘Trip Hazard’ sounds like a good name for a band. Or maybe an action hero.” She replied: “Can you imagine Trip from Enterprise in a superhero costume?”

And there was much laughter.

Casualties of Retcon

The title comes from a series of articles on The Quarter Bin. The subject is a pair of very literal casualties from the recent mini-series, Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day. I am speaking of Lilith and Donna Troy.

I was rereading the story yesterday, and I realized the two characters killed were those whose origins had been rewritten so many times that people didn’t know how to write them anymore. In fact, Donna has her own article at the Quarter Bin.

And both of them can be traced back to the post-Crisis decision to move Wonder Woman’s origin forward in time.

The immediate result of this was that Wonder Girl had appeared on the scene several years before Wonder Woman. So (1) she was no longer a teenaged sidekick, just a teenaged hero, and (2) she needed a new explanation for her powers. This was left an open question for a couple of years, then handled in Marv Wolfman and George Perez’ excellent “Who Is Wonder Girl.”

The only problem with that story is that it contradicted Lilith’s origin. Lilith had been an orphan, who could see glimpses of the future, but knew nothing of her own past. Her search for her parents (or at least her mother) served as a series of backup stories in the original Teen Titans series, and was finally concluded when she learned (just months before the Crisis) that she was the daughter of Thia, the sun goddess of the Titans of Greek myth. Unfortunately, Donna’s new origin also involved the Titans of Myth, but Thia had never left — leaving Lilith an orphan again.

The real messing up I lay squarely at the feet of Dan Jurgens and John Byrne (although a healthy amount can be blamed on the editorial policy of killing off any concept whose series has been cancelled — like the Darkstars, whose ranks Donna joined after she lost her own powers). Read the rest of this entry »

Now I know why they call it “Northern”

Okay, so this may border on TMI, but… Read the rest of this entry »

Offensive Driving

I hate drivers who refuse to let me in, even though they can clearly see that my lane is disappearing. What do they expect me to do, vanish in a puff of smoke? Or do they actually want me to go off the side of the road and crash into a ditch?

Especially when, after I manage to get into the lane despite their best efforts, they refuse to back off and give themselves adequate stopping distance. As if no one ever has to slam on their brakes.

Especially when, just ahead, traffic is dropping from 50 mph to a dead stop. So I have to slam on the brakes, but can’t. If I brake too hard, the idiot behind me will crash into me. If I don’t brake hard enough, I’ll hit the car in front.

Today, I found the narrow window between braking too much and braking too little. But there are few driving situations that make me more nervous.

Let’s See If I’ve Got This Right

One things that’s bugged me since the start of the effort to recall Governor Davis is that people keep bringing up the budget crisis.

Repeat after me: The Legislature chooses the budget, not the Governor.

Recalling the governor because the legislature can’t get its act together is like firing your plumber because your electrician screwed up.

Of course it’s all tied up in partisan politics. Some people just want a Republican governor, and are using the budget as an excuse. (Anyone remember the regular budget impasses during Pete Wilson’s administration in the early 1990s? This is not unique to Gray Davis!) Some people just want to throw someone out, and it’s less effort to kick out one governor than 100+ legislators.

But the budget crisis is all about party infighting. The Democrats have rallied behind tax increases, the Republicans have rallied behind spending cuts, and neither side will budge.

If these people would just stop fighting over who was a Democrat and who was a Republican, maybe they’d actually get some work done.

Comic Con! (2003)

I’ve been to the San Diego Comic Con every year since 1990 (before they changed the name to Comic Con International), but this is the first year I’ve gone in costume.

Last weekend, Katie and I searched a bunch of vintage clothing and regular clothing stores looking for pieces she would need for a Sluggy Freelance Gwynn costume from “The Bug, the Witch and the Robot”. I already everything for a Riff costume except long hair, so we looked for hair extensions as well. We plan on putting up a “how-to” at some point, but I’ll just post the finished product here.

A ton of photos follow: Read the rest of this entry »

Just go ahead and say it

You know those people who like to bitch about “basically?” The ones who picked on “like” and “you know” (and, mercifully, seem to have given up)? I’ve got another one for them, and it ain’t “Could I get.”

Maybe it’s more prevalent in a business environment where people are asking advice and permission all the time, but the phrase “go ahead and” has really started to grate my cheese. People no longer say “I’m going to send you the form,” but “I’m going to go ahead and send you the form.” The woman across the cube wall from me actually said it twice in one sentence today–something like, “I’m going to [GAA] send you the form, and then you [GAA] fill it out and send it in.” I’ve blocked out her exact words, thank god.

Omit unnecessary words, guys. GAAh.

Netscape is dead. Long live Mozilla!

OK, that may be a bit melodramatic, but there are two interesting and complementary bits of news:

The Mozilla Foundation was announced as a non-profit that will be the new home for Mozilla. AOL has donated $2 million for start-up funding, and various other companies have announced plans to support it.

AOL is dismantling Netscape. Some people are being laid off, others are being reassigned. Many of them intend to keep working on Mozilla, either for the Mozilla Foundation or on a volunteer basis. Heck, Dave Hyatt has kept contributing despite working on Safari for Apple, and I’m fairly certain I’ve seen Ian “Hixie” Hickson on Bugzilla since he started at Opera.

Pros: Mozilla will be fully independent. No more choosing the lesser of two evils (Microsoft vs. AOL)! The last few versions of Netscape have been pretty redundant anyway, and Mozilla has been making a name for itself over the past year.

Cons: Certain drop in funding, possible drop in confidence, likely drop in visibility (or at least name recognition). Mozilla’s already going through a transition period in terms of the project architecture (from monolithic suite to separate components using a common base). And news sources that don’t understand the implications of open source, or don’t connect the first announcement with the second, are going to assume Mozilla is disappearing as well.

Other projects (Apache, Gnome, KDE, and of course Linux) have shown that you can keep a resource-intensive open-source project going. I don’t know how rough the transition will be, but I have no doubts that Mozilla can keep going.

So much for keeping up to date

Two years ago, the company I work for moved to a new office. We used to do most of our domain name registrations through Network Solutions, mainly out of habit from when they were the only registrar, and accounts were of two types:

1. Contacts. This involved a person or role and contact information.
2. Domain names. This involved the person or company who registered the domain name, and links to three contacts (admin, technical, and billing).

So I had a contact account for any registrations we did on our clients’ behalf. We moved - again, this was two years ago - and I updated the address.

Network Solutions has restructured their entire account system into something immensely complicated. Somehow this single contact account has been split into three separate accounts, none of which had the password I started with, and all of which had the old address.

Yes, all three redundant accounts showed the address and phone number that I deleted two years ago.

We used to have people lose their domain names (or at least get them put on hold) because they never gave NS their new address when they moved, and they wouldn’t get the renewal notice. I guess these days it doesn’t really matter. Even if you do update your address, they’ll revert it anyway.

More Hawaii Photos

OK, the last set of photos were nice scenic pictures. This set is stuff that looked interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

To hell with the concert plans

The Orange County Fair usually has some pretty good concerts lined up. Last year, they were all free with admission, but this year, they opened up a separate venue and kicked up the price. Tonight it was Joan Osborne and Melissa Etheridge, which was a very cool concert. The volume got turned up too high too fast, but each of them put on a good show. I have to say, Melissa Etheridge has the most expressive face I’ve seen on a vocal performer in a while. They had two huge HDTV screens showing whatever the cameraguy of the moment was focusing on, and when it was on her, she could get a round of screaming out of the audience with just one note and an eyebrow. This concert made me sorry I didn’t pick up any more of her CDs during the big Wherehouse closeout a few months ago. Ah well, there are sales ahead….

The title of the post, by the way, is a misheard lyric from “I Wanna Come Over;” the real line is “To hell with the consequence.” We ran into another opportunity for humor during “Bring Me Some Water” when Kelson pointed out that not only did she already have a bottle of water, but someone had put it in a little holder on the mic stand–which was visible on the video screen. Of course, my brain started writing alternate lyrics. (Apologies to all necessary parties, including those of you who don’t know the song.)

*****

Somebody brought you some water
Can’t you see it’s there on your stand
You took it off the stage, right there at the front corner
A minute ago, with your hot little hand

Somebody brought you some water
Think I saw you sippin’ before
The music’s got my mind, and the music’s got my soul
But tonight I think logic, I think logic’s out that door

*****

Side note: They have some damn yummy fruit at the Terri’s Berries booth right by the theater. Must remember this for the Alanis Morissette concert in two weeks.

What do you think’s in the burgers?

I wonder if the local McDonald’s has ever looked at their sign from a car at the nearest street corner?

Of course, it could also mean they’re friendly toward large feline customers….

Good Intentions?

We’ve been meaning to get a picture of this for weeks, but it’s tough to get while driving past. So finally we just stopped at a nearby parking lot and Katie went out to take the picture:

Ignore the abuse of quotation marks for now, and consider this: a Christian store has painted all its windows with flames.

Late, indeed!

Last weekend we got a pile of mail sent to former residents of our apartment. I was looking through the list of names, including several we didn’t recognize, and was just getting ready to start writing “Not at this address” on all of them, when I noticed the postmarks. They were all from between 1997 and 2000!

I guess the Post Office must have found a box or two of lost mail, and just decided to deliver it. There were things that looked like they were from banks or collection agencies, and one that looked like a greeting card with “Happy Birthday Late” written on the back of the envelope.

Later than you thought…

Hawaii Photos

Yes, it’s been 3 1/2 months, but I finally got around to posting some of the best of the Hawaii photos!

Keep or Toss: Poll #1

Time to introduce a new feature! I’ve been having a lot of muse attacks lately, and darn it, I can’t wait until I have a finished product to put some stuff up for feedback. I can always read aloud to Kelson, but I’d really like more than one opinion for a change. (Not a dig at Kelson–I just like to widen my audience.) So here goes.

This is a bit from the infamous original-sequence story #6 (jeez, that sounds like a menu item). I don’t consider any of it spoilerish, but in case someone does, I’ve relegated it to the next page. Leave a comment and let me know if you think I should keep it as is, change it, or toss it.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Technical” problems. Riiight.

Email sent to the webmaster address. Subject: “Technical Problems.” Filed in the spam folder.

As it turns out, it’s an ad for Viagra.

At least the subject, if misleading, makes a strange sort of sense.

And what exactly is it you’re trying to say?

Someone is extremely unclear on the concept in “Study Acquits Peanuts in Allergic Reaction.” Consider:

A new study debunks the theory that peanut allergies are caused by an offending ingredient inherent in the nut. Instead, the research shows, the condition stems from a person’s abnormal immune response.

In other words, they’ve determined that peanut allergy is an allergy.

Well, duh.

At least they had the sense to provide a link to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network.

Uruk-Hai in the building

Some kind of maintenance people are banging on pipes downstairs and I swear it sounds just like the frikkin “drums in the deep…”

Note to self #2

Do not attempt to demonstrate to your significant other how two people in your story would kiss when you’ve just eaten loads of allergens. It will not end well.

Peter David on Order of the Phoenix

I found Peter David’s review of the latest Harry Potter. I agree for the most part with his take on the high/low points, although the pacing didn’t bother me. I had made a comment the other day to Katie regarding Voldemort’s objective not being worth protecting. After all (spoilers) Read the rest of this entry »

Flame Warriors

I found this site quite amusing: A Netizen’s Guide to Flame Warriors

At the moment there are about 80 types of forum belligerents in the list - each has an illustration and a brief description.

Ugh

The new Jewel single sounds like No Doubt trying to cover Christina Aguilera.

Seriously, listen to “Intuition” and tell me it doesn’t sound like “Genie in a Bottle” sung by Gwen Stefani.