December 2004 Archives

Well, not really, but that'll come later....

What do I mean by that? Well, first off, if you have a small company, you should probably consider getting a new sysadmin after about two years. If you have a "team" of sysadmins, then it means that (aside from cross-training for vacation and sick coverage) you should keep them focused on certain aspects of the work, and try to steer them away from other aspects.

I've seen this sort of situation time and again: SysAdmin is overworked. He picks and chooses which things in the infrastructure he can "fix". It's normally hot "hard" to fix any of the things he needs to fix, but he can only get to certain things, so some things he fixes, and other things he grudgingly learns to live with in their slightly misshapen state.

New sysadmins, though, never put up with that. A new sysadmin comes in and, again, from my experience, spends the first 30-60 days "cleaning up" what his predecessor had learned to live with. They're given the slack, time-wise, from their superiors, because that cleaning up process is often an excellent way to get to know the systems, etc.

In other words, lots of really good nitty-gritty work gets done in the first couple months of an SA's employment... after about six months or so, if the problem was pre-existing to their start date, and there's a workaround in place, it's pretty unlikely that they'll actually get the time to fix it.

Take my experience at $JOB->prev()... in the first couple months I was there, I kicked serious ass changing all sorts of shit. I pointed out bunches of things that also needed to get changed, but then as time wore on, the likelihood of those getting changed slowly diminished. I had a "wish list" of "stuff I wish I had time to get to"... when my replacement started, after I left, it seemed like everything on my wish list got done in short order, probably for the reasons I outlined above.

Obviously, it's not really in my best interest to suggest firing sysadmins every couple years, and in reality, that's not really the best answer. I think it's probably a good idea for SAs and their employers to consider the reality of this, though, because I've seen it in companies relatively small and relatively large.

One answer might be for the employer to commit to a schedule that includes "[NN] days a month are not about current-projects at all, but about handling wish-list items" ... days when "current projects" no matter how important are set aside to handle the equally important infrastructure issues which need to be taken care of. If you schedule them on a set schedule (say, "the 10th through the 15th of the month, each month") then the ongoing current projects would know that they don't have any SysAdmin resources during that time period and can project their timelines accordingly.

This is important stuff, because it doesn't matter how spiffy the current project is, if it's built on a house of cards that's not getting the attention it needs, then it's not going to be all that stable, and you're not going to be happy with it anyway.

I think it's absolutely great that Amazon, and eBay/PayPal, and Google, and Yahoo are making such efforts to either collect directly for (in Amazon's and eBay's cases) or direct people to various NGOs which are trying to help the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami. It's proof positive that people can come together and make a difference. When I checked a few minutes ago, Amazon had collected over four million dollars for the effort from its users.

The challenge I put forth is this: This country, here has its share of problems. We have homeless people, jobless people, poor people, you name it, all of whom could stand to benefit from exactly the same kinds of help you're offering people on the other side of the planet -- they need food, they need shelter, they need clothing, you name it.

I challenge these sites to put as much effort into collecting "relief" for their neighbors as they have for those people on the other side of the planet. It's not nearly so sexy from a PR standpoint, but just as needed.

For the record, I'm not holding my breath.

George and I were talking today, and realized that it's time for a summer festival tour like the days of old.

Five bands, we figured.... the two headliners (alternating on some sort of schedule of their choosing who goes on last): Iron Maiden and Judas Priest ... both of whom have summer-tour availability at the moment.

Now, the "first two" bands on any festival tour like this are local to regional up-n-comers, so we didn't really try to figure out who they should be, because it's going to widely vary. So who sits in the middle, taking the "We're known, but we're not quite headlining festivals level yet" spot? Well, given that both the headliners were European acts, we figured it'd be another Euro group. George suggested Scorpions, but I vetoed them on the "what the fuck have they done lately?" logic and, besides, you want a middle-act that's different enough to bring in a different group of people, but similar enough not to get boo'ed off the stage.

Then he saw exactly where I was going... Rammstein ... angry German metal would fit perfectly into that middle slot.

I wonder if there's any tour promoters reading this. I'd seriously pay good coin for this lineup, man. Someone make it happen.

I wanted to comment on something over at Mark's Blog, and was confronted with a "you must log in if you want to leave a comment".

Now, ok, I can almost forgive the Blogger/Google Consortium for saying "we want to put that up there to get in the way, so that we can minimize spam"... I mean, MovableType does it with their TypeKey program, so why not.

First mistake:

Why the fuck do I need to set up a blog in order to have an account to post comments from?

There's no way to create a simple "I want an account I can post from but I've got a blog elsewhere and have no need for your crummy Blogger[TM] tools". You have to decide on a title for your blog, and a URL (I'm now the proud owner of http://aslkdjaskljdlasjdklas.blogspot.com/), and a style-sheet and all that useless shite that I'm never, ever going to use.

Even now that I've got my crappy blogspot account set up, I can't leave a fucking comment.

I click to leave a comment. It prompts me for my username and password, claiming that I'm not logged in. I give it my username and password. It brings me to my "dashboard". OK, I think to myself, this is a crappy UI design, but now that I'm logged in, and I'd checked "remember me", I'll go back to the post, re-click the "comment" link, and leave my comment.

Except that it, once again, asks me for my username and password. And, once again, redirects me to my "dashboard".

I thought to myself "maybe this is a Firefox thing"... nope, fails with Safari too. And IE, as well. Maybe it's a "Mac versus Windows" thing. Who knows, but 3 out of 3 browsers on the Mac can't seem to login and leave a comment.

So Mark, I wanted to leave a comment on your blog, but I couldn't. I hope you'll forgive me if I don't expend a lot of effort in the future trying to figure out how to make it work in the future, unless the Bloogle Consortium changes their UI drastically.

And if there's someone out there who wants "http://aslkdjaskljdlasjdklas.blogspot.com/" for their own purposes, feel free to ask, and it shall be yours.

As requested by readers of my previous post about my former bank, here is the huge check I got from Citibank, wherein they spent $.37 on postage, another couple cents on an envelope, another couple cents on a check, and a whole of lot of peoples' time in sorting it out, just to send me the whopping total of "0 dols 01 cts".

Morons.

Highs: Today was food-day at work. There are about a gajillion different things to eat and drink in the kitchen today, and lots of them yummy even.

Lows: "backup" is a poor password for the "backup" user... Predecessor's death already being plotted. 'Nuff said.

Who's Alexander Bulay you ask? In this area, if you want to see a movie, you have three basic options....

• The mall mega-cineplex owned by Regal
• The rare arthouse theaters in Woodstock and Rhinebeck
• A small chain of three theaters that are owned by the same guy

Alexander Bulay is the gentleman who owns the latter. There are local townsfolk threatening to boycott his theatres because he ran ads espousing how proud he was he wouldn't show the Michael Moore film.

While I don't necessarily think I agree with Bulay's political leanings in general, I'll be damned if I don't feel proud to know that there are people who are willing to stand by their convictions and not give a rat's ass about who they offend in the process. Frankly, why do I care about the politics of someone who runs a theatre, I go there for entertainment, not to discuss politics with the owner.

I think the best quote from the entire article was:

"I was going to let the thing die down, but these clowns have annoyed me," he said. "Do I care if they never set foot in one of my theaters again? No. Let them stay home and watch the Michael Moore movie another 12 times."

Seriously. This guy is great. Plus, the important part, is that he's a locally owned business who sells the same product - seats in front of a silver screen - for cheaper than the megacorp down the road does.

He'll be getting more of my business in the future. If he's not carrying the movie I want to see, then ok, maybe I'll go see it elsewhere, but hopefully I can offset for him the potential loss of at least one of these boycotters that are threatening him.

Keep up the good work, Alex!

My grades for the F04 semester were posted and it appears to be official.

After fourteen years, I am no longer on Academic Probation. (Or at least, I shouldn't be, now that I have a 2.0 cumulative GPA)

I posted about this over the summer in the PrivateBlog, but wanted to wait until now, until I had the proof firmly in my hand, to say something in the public forum.

About a year and a half ago, give or take, (that portion has been a long time), ExWife called me out of the blue, to brag about how "she was going to be in a film" and how "she met David Prowse" and how "wasn't she special blah blah blah blah blah".

Turns out there was an independent film, called Saving Star Wars filming in and around Indianapolis, where ExWife lives. It was filmed on a shoestring budget, and had the support of the local community, etc., etc. It's more of a drama than most "fan films", and Star Wars mania is really only a backdrop to some decent dramatic issues.

So, ExWife is all bragging about how she's going to be an extra in the movie, blah blah blah. I get her off the phone as quick as humanly possible in those days, and go off to investigate the movie myself. It's kinda neat, part of their self-financing is "selling" Associate Producer credits. Now, we all know what an associate producer really is, but I thought it'd be fun, and after all, I'd now have conquered two types of media, by earning myself an IMDb page in the process.

Fast forward to this past summer. At GenCon, they're having a screening of the film in the Con's film competition. So I get up bright and early, head down to the screening room, and check it out. I come away feeling that my A.P. money was well-spent, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the A.P. credits weren't like a mash of tiny-font names like the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition fan-club names were, but it's a decent font size, etc., etc.

Then I continue watching... to get to the "Extras"... and lo and behold, not a single mention of ExWife's name. Ah, says I, this is a rough-cut (this was clear from some sound issues throughout the DVD "print"), so maybe the credits are incomplete at that point.

Until today, when I got home, and found the DVD waiting for me. The real deal, the final version..... more A.P. credits now, so they go by a little faster than they did in the rough-cut, but still no sign of the Ex's name anywhere near it.

"Lying Bitch", Prince Barin, Flash Gordon (1980)

For reasons I can't really fathom, the entire time I lived in the San Jose area, I thought that Bay 101 was a health club or something like that. Despite the fact that their logo contains a club symbol. Yes, I'm a moron. I accept that.

Since I was in the area, and since I had never been to an actual real poker room, I decided to spend some time Saturday afternoon, seeing how I would do against live players who I didn't know in a competitive environment, as opposed to playing against either friends or playing online at PokerRoom.com. I set for myself a reasonable limit, bought in for half that amount, and sat down to play some 2-4 Limit Hold 'Em.

I played extremely tight for the first two hours I was there. I only got into about a half-dozen hands the entire time, got nothing to show for it, and at that point, the blinds and collections had pretty well depleted my "start with half" funds.

Feeling that I wasn't really playing too badly (I just couldn't get the cards I needed when I needed them), I bought in for the other half of my limit, and continued to play.

My fellow players were playing extremely loose, and taking down some serious pots in the process (I was in seat 1, the guy in seat 5 ended up with a chip-stack about six times the size of his buy-in, and he wasn't really showing all that great of cards when push came to shove.

I decided to loosen up my play a little bit, especially now that I had established myself as being a fairly tight player. I could afford to go in for a ocuple lesser quality hands, banking on the reputation I'd spent the previous two hours cultivating. Over the next two hours, I slowly crawled back to being within 10% of reaching my total buy-in.

Unfortunately, that was as close as it got. I got some serious bad-beats (Aces over 10s being beaten by a complete set of four 10's, for instance) from hands that you simply can't lay-down and that (in fact) you think to yourself "I've got the nuts and I'm going to raise the fuck out of this hand, because what could you possibly have that will beat me?"...

I walked away after losing my limit, and while I would have liked to come away in the black, I feel fairly good in that I don't think I actually played that bad, I just couldn't get the cards I needed. I hadn't loosened up so much that I was playing hands I should have gotten the hell away from (OK, there was that one time, but it was clear that the other guy had complete shit, except that his shit beat my shit... Ace-King High beating my Ace-Queen High).

The biggest complaint I had was that it was a typical low-limit table, in that people were willing to bet on shit hands. Very few hands didn't see at least six people in at the flop. But if it only costs $2.00 to see a flop, why not? Therein lay the problem, because then the pot-odds start to look appealing to people and they ride out hands that they really shouldn't, and get lucky on the river. My problem was that 2-4 was still about four times the table stakes I normally play at online (I've been doing .50-1, and on rare occasions 1-2, but 2-4 was still a step upward for me financially). I felt reluctant to get into a 3-6 or 6-12 game, because those stakes were further outside my normal realm of spending, and my small chipstake wouldn't have gotten me very far along in those games. But, I might have survived longer simply because the players would have behaved more "normally" and provided a better baseline.

On the other hand, we wouldn't be likely to see the two different non-english-speaking gentlemen who apparently didn't understand that they could actually "fold" or "check", and would just keep betting/calling all the way to the river, and invariably have nothing. People that incompetent generally don't end up in the higher-stakes games.

Overall, I would probably do Bay 101 again the next time I visit the Bay Area. It's a decent card-room, and if I hadn't been waiting for their low-limits game, I could have gotten on a 3-6 table within about ten minutes, which doesn't seem unreasonable.

Man, I frickin love California.

I'm staying at this really nice hotel, and had something I haven't had in three long years, In-N-Out burgers. Those of you who've had them know what I'm talking about, and all the rest are just sorta dumb-founded. But that's ok.

Spent a lot of time this afternoon walking around my old stomping grounds, chatting with people I hadn't seen in years. Almost made me want to come back to work there, actually. I know my entire last year there, I was the stereotypical "disgruntled employee", but so were a lot of my co-workers (including some of the people who I was hanging out with today). Many of them seem to have come to grips with their disgruntled nature, pointing out a lot of "changes for good" that have been made, and they seem to be genuinely happy with where things are today.

I also spent some quality time with someone that I really and truly wish I'd have been single and available to spend quality time with when I lived out here. Her schedule is pretty hectic at the moment (product rollout was due yesterday, still not ready, not sure when it will be ready), but we're going to try and get together again before I head back Sunday morning. I have no idea where, if anywhere, that's going, but we enjoy each other's company, and that's enough. :-)

So, on the "Things Derek Wants To Do While Visiting The Area" list, I've crossed off "See The Yahoos", and "Hit In-N-Out"... "Spend some time at Bay 101" is still on the list, but I think that will get rectified tomorrow or Saturday evening.

I've got some more people to see tomorrow while I'm here, but otherwise, it's rest and relaxation for a few days in the land where the windows were rolled down, the sunroof open, and the winter jacket stashed in the trunk where it'll stay until I bring the car back to the rental agency....

Seriously, seatguru.com is something every air traveller must bookmark.

Amazon lists the run-time of the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition at 208 minutes. Likewise the Two Towers extended version. Return of the King Extended clocks in at 250 minutes.

208 + 208 + 250 = 666

Sweet. Wonder if that was intentional on Peter Jackson's part.

Took my final tonight in my HIST101 class. It didn't seem too hard, which basically means that I did really well on it, or really horrible.

Now I have a couple weeks breather, before my S'05 semester begins. I'm taking POSC101, "Political Issues and Ideas", and another that I'm really looking forward to, actually, POSC392, "Special Topics: America and the Challenge of Terrorism". That last one seems like it should be very interesting.

Touching on something I mentioned recently.... there was recently (well, there still is actually) a thread on rec.arts.sf.babylon5.moderated where someone asked Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski about his opinion of a letter Ron Moore (of Battlestar Galactica [2004]) had written.

The gist of the letter was "We know it's airing in the UK and not the US, and we appreciate your fandom, but please don't download it, it hurts our bottom line."

JMS went into -- what was to me a large surprise since he always seemed so much brighter and so out of step with Hollywood norms -- a near clone-like rendition of the standard "Hollywood Copyright You're Hurting Us" doctrine. I responded to his message trying to explain to him exactly where he was wrong, but someone has fed him that line of shite, and he's too emotional about the issue to actually see the forest but for the trees, insisting on thinking that the people who download the content (who are, you know, fans!!!) are scum-sucking weasels, blah blah blah. To say that "I ripped into him" would be an understatement. I definitely won't be invited to be in the next Babylon 5 production, you can guarantee that. He responded to me, wherein he basically said "trust the rights holders we know how this stuff works", to which as part of a lengthy reply I also pointed out that I also am a rights-holder, and probably (since I get paid per-unit on real sales, and not in aggregate) am much closer to the "feeling the pain for every illegal copy" place than he will ever dream of being.

First we need to explain where TV shows make their money. An initial run of a TV show is paid for by the network or the syndicator, and everyone involved in creating that show gets paid. If the show does well in the ratings, then the show may get repeated or renewed, resulting in additional residual funds in the case of repeats, or additional contracts for first-run materials in the case of renewal. Such funds and contracts are the bread and butter of the creators of the art we call "TV".

So, to document this whole concept for the future, let me describe the four different classifications of "people who download TV shows, as it relates to their effect on the money".

• The Collector - This is the individual who downloads everything strictly for the purpose of having everything. This person wasn't actually going to watch half these shows, and probably watches even less than half of what they download. They're just trying to have a huge-ass collection of "stuff".

  Effect on initial run revenue - $0.00 the show still airs
  Effect on residual revenue - $0.00 That person wasn't going to be a viewer or not be a viewr, to keep the show alive or kill it anyway

• The überfan - This individual can't wait to see the show. They just want to see it now and not wait until it airs on TV. When it airs on TV, they'll still watch it. And when it airs in reruns, they'll watch it then, too. Over and over again.
  

  Effect on initial run revenue - $0.00 the show still airs
  Effect on residual revenue - Positive as expected. They continue to watch future airings just as they would be expected to.

• The Casual Viewer - This individual downloads a copy off the web, but decides "one viewing is enough" and never watches the initial airing, nor do they watch any reruns that may or may not appear.
  

  Effect on initial revenue - $0.00 the show still airs
  Effect on residual revenue - $0.00. They were never going to be a repeat viewer, anyway, so there is no revenue that they "would have represented and generated". There is a possibility that their lack of initial viewing may contribute to a perceived lack of demand for repeat viewings, but that will be addressed later.

• The Cheapskate - This is the asshole. This is the guy who would have continued to watch it on TV, but doesn't do so. This is the guy who says "why bother? I still have it on my hard drive" instead of watching reruns.
  

  Effect on initial revenue - $0.00 the show still airs
  Effect on residual revenue - The rightsholder is deprived of any residuals that the cheapskate represented in terms of increased audience or viewing demand

Now, in the first two cases it's quite clear. There is zero financial loss to the rights holders.

In the third and fourth cases, there is at least the potential of real loss to those rightsholders. In the case of the Casual Viewer, that potential is only really evident if the Casual Viewer is also a Neilsen household. If the Casual Viewer isn't a Neilsen household, there's no way of knowing what he did or did not watch, and so his or her lack of viewing does not in any way affect the perceived demand for future airings, and thus does not affect any residuals.

In the case of The Cheapskate, there is a greater "perceived" loss. After all, this is the asshole. This is the guy Hollywood wants to paint the other three categories of people ass. Except that, again, unless he's a Neilsen household, his lack of viewing still doesn't deprive the rights holders of any of their revenue!

This is, in no way, saying it's ok to copy DVDs, CDs, etc. Those are all things for which your copying of them has a much higher chance of actually being a real detriment to those rights-holders' bottom lines.

If the TV industry was to set up something like an "iTunes for TV", that offered first-run shows for download, then and only then would there be "real loss" for downloading TV series episodes for free off the net. Because then you would have deprived their revenue stream - the one you should have paid into to download the content - of its income. (Although many of the above arguments might still hold water in that situation, I just don't want to get bogged down in what is largely a theoretical debate, and would rather just concentrate on "what's reality as of today.")

Summation: Unless you're a Neilsen household, or allow your data to be collected in such a manner, there is zero effect upon anyone in Hollywood's bottom line if you download TV shows from internet sites.

Back in August, I switched all my accounts away from SuperMegaBankingCorp to my local credit union.

I chuckled to myself when I noticed that they'd made the attempt to close my accounts without actually waiting (or accounting for) pending interest payments, and after they "closed" my account and sent me my check, they credited the savings account for, no lie, $0.01 in interest.

So, the account had been carrying a penny in it for the last four months. Today I got a statement in the mail indicating that they had decided to charge me the standard MegaCorp monthly fee of $9.50, leaving an account balance of $-9.49.

*dial*
CSR: Thank you for calling SuperMegaBankingCorp
.... identification phase ....
CSR: Thank you, Mr. Balling, how can I help you?
Me: I asked that this savings account be closed approximately four to five months ago. After I closed it, you credited a penny's interest to it. I figured you'd see the account was idle with a penny, see the mistake, and either close it out or send me a check for a penny. Instead you decided to start charging me monthly fees. How about I waive the penny you owe me, and you waive the additional $9.49 in charges it's in arrears for?
CSR: Yes, sir, you see, since your account is overdrawn right now --
Me: I know it's overdrawn. It's overdrawn only because you guys messed it up and didn't close it when I asked you to.
CSR: Can I put you on hold please?
Me: Certainly.
... giftmas hold music ...
CSR: Thank you for waiting. Did you receive any statements during that time frame indicating that you were carrying a balance?
Me: Yeah, sure. They showed a penny. I figured you had smart people working for you and would figure it out.
CSR: Please hold for a moment, sir.
Me: Sure.
... giftmas hold music ...
CSR: Mr. Balling, thank you for holding, I have Mr. Supervisor on the line and he will assist you further.
Me: OK.
Supe: Mr. Balling, how are you today?
Me: I'm fine.
Supe: Right now we show you have a balance of $-18.99 ---
Me: No, I have a negative balance as of my last statement, dated five days ago, of $-9.49, where did the additional $9.50 come from? Don't tell me - overdraft charge!
Supe: No, actually, the first $9.50 was charged 11/5, at the beginning of the statement cycle, and an additional $9.50 was charged the day after that statement printed, the beginning of the next statement cycle.
Me: Ah. Dumb, but ok.
Supe: So I understand you were expecting a check for a penny?
Me: No, I had zeroed the account balance, and told them to close the account. Then, after I told them to do that, a penny of interest was credited to the account.
Supe: Did you receive statements showing the penny?
Me: Yes.
Supe: Why didn't you call in to resolve the matter?
Me: Because it's a penny?
Supe: And?
Me: And I figured you guys would see an idle account, already scheduled as "to be closed", containing a single penny in it, and would either (a) send me a check for a penny, or (b) simply charge me $0.01 in some miscellaneous debit, and close the account out that way. You know, like how it would have been done if real people actually paid attention to stuff instead of computers running the show without any human interaction involved.
Supe: I see.
Me: As I told the girl, I don't want the penny, it's not worth my time. I just want the thing to go away.
Supe: Can I place you on hold for a moment?
Me: Sure can.
... giftmas hold music ...
Supe: Thank you for holding. I have reversed those charges and you should receive a check for zero dollars and one cent in the mail in 7-10 business days.
Me: Seriously, you don't need to do that.
Supe: Actually, sir, I really do.
Me: You can't just say "he was willing to accept $0.01 worth of the $19.00 in fees we'd assessed" and leave it at that?
Supe: No, sir.
Me: Well, if you want to spend $0.37 to mail me $0.01, who am I to argue. It's not like you guys can't afford to throw money away.
Supe: Is there anything else?
Me: Nope, have a good night.
Supe: Thank you for calling, blah blah blah...

Man... talk about inability to think outside the box a little bit.

Look, Google, if I search for something like bluetooth trackball, and you can't show me a fucking trackball within the first, say, 16 pages of output, then maybe it's a good idea to either:

• Refine the algorithm so that it puts trackballs earlier. I gave up after 16 pages
• If there are no bluetooth trackballs, and I'm beginning to suspect there aren't, tell me there's no fucking bluetooth trackballs!! Don't just assume that if I can't have a trackball, I'll want to sift through all the pretty mice hoping to find one. Or if you are going to do that, put a big fat disclaimer in 50pt type at the top saying "we couldn't find what you wanted, but maybe you'd like to look at these instead?" or something... anything?

Urgh.

Reading Brian's story about how I pointed him at the BitTorrents of the upcoming Battlestar Galactica series (which is airing first on SkyONE in the UK because of the way the joint-production contract was written) made me realize that I hadn't yet posted anything myself about this great series.

I'll admit it. I went into the mini-series, which aired on Sci-Fi about six or eight months ago now I guess, with extreme trepidation. Boomer a girl? Starbuck a chick?! Seriously, what was Ron Moore thinking, that blasphemer.

The mini-series convinced me, though, that while it wasn't "my Battlestar," it was definitely something workable, and something worthy of the name. Further, it was a storyline that I wanted to hear more about.

I've watched through episode 1x08 so far (1x01 hasn't even aired in the U.S. yet, and won't til the middle of next month) and I have to say that I love where the storyline is going. It's part classic BSG, part Space: Above and Beyond, and part freakin' X-Files, with the levels of mystery and machinations that are going on in the background.

But the beauty is that it all works. Even Richard Hatch, who was a proponent of his own self-funded BSG revival project, and was an outspoken critic of Ron Moore's "plan", came onboard to do a "recurring cameo" role in the new series (although it hasn't actually recurred yet).

If you are BT savvy, I highly recommend grabbing these now and catching up. If not, definitely, definitely start watching in January when SciFi airs them. Apparently, the reaction in the U.K. has been so good that NBC is actually going to air the mini-series on their normal NBC feed some time in January before SciFi airs 1x01, so US viewers will finally get to see it in Hi-Def.

I say again: Watch this show!

I mentioned earlier the parking clusterfuck at Marist tonight. I sent off three e-mails today. One to John Gildard, the Director of Security (the person who sent the e-mail announcement) asking, essentially, "what the fuck are night commuters supposed to do?". The second I sent to Timmian Massie, who was listed on the map as the point of contact for general inquiries, asking much the same thing. The third I sent to Timothy Heneghan, the Coordinator of Events and Facility Operations for the Athletic Department (which runs the McCann Center, where the game is hosted), and asked specifically about the "shuttle service" that Gildard's e-mail had mentioned the Athletics Department would be running.

I received responses to none of them, except a message from Heneghan who seemed positively confused wondering what the heck I was talking about. I figure they'll probably answer me tomorrow. That would make sense, obviously.

This didn't leave me with any warm fuzzies about parking this evening, so I decided to call Gildard up. After all, his phone number was in the e-mail he sent. Turns out, the number he gives is just the normal security desk, so I couldn't give him a piece of my mind, but...

Woman: Marist College Security.
Me: So what the heck are night time commuters supposed to do for parking tonight?
Woman: Hold please.
.... hold ....
Woman: Hello, sir? Yes, you can park in Beck.
Me: Beck? The lot that is 100% capacity on a normal night, and is only 1/3 the size of McCann, is now going to handle the capacity of both itself and McCann?
Woman: (listening to someone off-phone) Or you can park in any lot north of Donnelly.
Me: There are no lots north of Donnelly until I get way the heck out by Dyson. Are you seriously telling me that my options are "the lot that is now oversold by a factor of 4, or way the hell out in Lower Slovakia?"
Woman: Well, sir, there's a basketball game tonight ...
Me: I know there's a basketball game tonight, but what about the school's primary purpose - education?
Woman: Well, sir, these things happen.
Me: Not if I was in charge they wouldn't.
*click*

For reference purposes for those who aren't Marist students. "McCann" is one of the two on-campus parking lots for commuter students (and is the only one not situated across the four-lane highway that students seem to keep getting hit by drivers on). Night commuter students are also permitted to park in the "Donnelly" lot, which is especially convenient if, like me, your class is in the Donnelly building. (map)

Marist will be hosting St. Peter's tonight December 6, 2004 at 7:30PM at the McCann Center. A large crowd is expected and all parking lots will be crowded.

The McCann and Donnelly Lots will close to students at 4:00PM.

Other lots will be open and will be filled on a first come, first served basis. Security Officers will be at lots to alert people that the lot is full.

Athletics will run their shuttle service as usual.

You are urged to give yourself extra time to get on campus and parked if you are coming in for the 5:00PM or 6:30PM, class or to the game.

So, if you're coming to a night class, and you want to park in McCann, you're fucked. If you want to maybe park in Donnelly, you're also fucked. You should also expect to be fucked some more because the next most convenient lot "Beck" is also probably going to be full. I mean, it's full on a normal night, I can't believe it's not going to be full on Fucking Hellish Sports Night. There's mention of some "shuttle service", but no real mention of what it is, and I strongly suspect it's "we carry the sports nuts from the parking lots located in the Czech Republic over to the front doors of the sports complex", and not that it's actually useful for getting from said parking lot to, say, a classroom building.

This to me would ordinarily signify "this is a night to skip this fucking class", except that tonight is review for next week's final exam. I kinda suspect that might be an important session to attend.

So basically, the basketball program is completely fucking over most of the parking on campus, interfering with the actual educational process, which the majority of the students actually attend the school for, instead of it being some four-year-long farm system for the NBA.

Fucking jocks.

You know, I'm the first person to say that if you can't be bothered to watch a TV show at the time it airs, then it's your own business if you can't avoid people talking about the outcome or plot elements of the show.

I just wish a full 10% of the blogs I read hadn't mentioned in one of their entries' titles the outcome of last night's episode of Survivor.

I was watching West Wing tonight and something occurred to me.

Why is it that we'll invade a foreign country, commit a metric assload of troops to fighting, consider reinstituting a draft even, all for a war that essentially boils down to "I'm going to attack you cuz you tried to kill my daddy," but we aren't willing to stand up as a country and say, "Yes, Taiwan deserves the right to self-determination guaranteed to it under the United Nations charter, and we're willing to defend their right to do so."

I mean... Christ, the Taiwanese want us to help them be free. If you did an opinion poll over there right now, it'd be like a bajillion-to-one in favor of freedom. Why are we wasting human lives on people who really don't want us to help them towards anything resembling freedom, when there are people who really do want to be free, begging for us to do so?

Ever try to catch up with an old friend you don't have contact info for...

... when that person's name is the same as that of a uberhot actress / model?

Yeah, this falls into the category of "search engines being useless for this task."