October 2007 Archives

I was waiting to see "what would happen with the manager spot" before I jumped into this topic, so I can nail all the various sub-topics at once....

Joe Torre - Joe, you got a shitty offer from Hank (we all know it's Hank running the show now, not George), and I'm glad you had the spine to stand up and say "No." Twelve years in the post-season is a record that any other team would kill or die for, and while the Yankees' front office might like to say "October's great, but rings are what count," the truth is you brought home fine jewelry 1/3 of the time. You deserved a deal that wasn't so blatantly insulting (a pay cut AND a no-confidence-vote one-year contract was a one-two punch of 'fuck you' that you were right to walk away from). It's looking like you're going to LA, and probably taking Donny with you. Good luck with that, you're a class act, and we'll miss you.

A-Rod - Fuck you. Sure you had a decent year this year, but in the post-season, we saw the A-Rod of seasons past, the one who can't hit the broad side of a barn. If there's some other team who wants you, please feel free. But if you thought the boo'ing was bad at Yankee Stadium in seasons past, wait til next season. If that booing got to you, as you said it did, might I suggest you tell Boras to only talk to National League teams. At least that way you'll only have to put up with it 3-4 nights in October.

Joe Girardi - Welcome aboard, man.

Roger Clemens - I said it when you "un-retired" to play in Texas without even giving the Yankees the courtesy of a chance at hiring you that you were "dead to me". When that didn't work out so well, and you came crawling back to play here, desperate for another chance at "going out on top", I still said to everyone you were dead to me. You're still dead to me, and now you've just blown your chance to retire from on top. Loser. Get the hell out of here.

George and the Kids - It's weird to see Hank's name on the press announcements, but it's good. I'm glad it's happening while there's still a chance of George offering advice when it occurs to him. Had it changed hands at a later year, that opportunity might not exist. It'll be interesting to see the direction the Hank era takes the team. It sounds like it's going to be more manageable... hell, it sounds like they're even thinking 2008 might be a "transition/growth year", which would be unheardof under Darth George.

Red Sox - They earned it. We didn't. Simple as that. Does it pain me to see the Sox getting rings? You betcha. But you have to give credit where it's due, and they rode first place pretty much the entire season, and didn't give an inch in the post. There's some who are saying they're "the new Yankees". Well, they've got a bit of "catch-up" to get to that point, but I see a lot of the "winning attitude" over there which has been noticeably lacking on the field in the Bronx.

Hopefully next year will be different....

Paul Helmke writes an article about a teenaged kid who was trying to convince his friends to all sign some pledge to not use guns, blah blah blah, but then who was "senselessly slain" after a meth addict who he threw a golf-ball at from a moving vehicle chased him down and shot him in the head. To Helmke, it is a metaphor for everything the gun-grabbing lobby has been saying all along.

Helmke titles his article using the epitaph from the kid's principal, "He was a good kid."

Ummm, no. If you are throwing a small, hard object at a high rate of speed, from an even-faster moving car, in such a fashion that you could potentially kill someone ... (and that's important here)... and do that for fucking kicks as a prank, you are at least as much of an asshole, in my opinion, than the guy who hunted you down and shot you in the head. Maybe even a little worse.

At least he had a reason for his violence. You attacked him. The junkie, for all the ills he may have performed in his life, never did anything to you to deserve your violence against him. It may not have been a "proportional response", by any stretch, but at least he had a reason for what he did. It was a twisted, out of proportion, act of retaliation for things you did to him.

You, "the good kid", endangered his life for no reason. Other than to give you and your friends a cheap laugh.

I'm sorry for your parents' loss, make no mistake. They didn't do anything necessarily to deserve this tragedy. But make no mistake, this kid is not someone to put up on a pedestal as "a good kid." Good kids don't do that sort of thing.

"You want to play the game, you better know the rules, love." - Harry Callahan, The Dead Pool

Over the last week of reality TV, I've seen two situations which are remarkably similar, both in the actions that were taken, and how the shows' representatives (producers, hosts, etc.) reacted to them.

In last week's episode of Survivor, the "twist" was that each team stole two tribe-members from the opposing faction. So now, in both tribes, there is a majority of "natives" (to that tribe) and two "outsiders" (who can most likely be counted on to be voted out next). The Zhan Hu tribe, in an absolutely brilliant strategic move, threw this week's immunity challenge, which both allowed them to eliminate one of the opposing faction members from within their tribe, but also protecting their own former tribe-mates in the enemy camp. It's clear from their conversations that will probably do the same thing at the next immunity challenge as well. This is brilliant because it gives their original tribe a significant advantage when the tribes finally merge, which will make their opponents (in the Fei Long) the minority, and easy pickins. Jeff Probst, the host, was clearly annoyed during the challenge as he watched two Zhan Hu participants, who are normally great at puzzles, completely make a mess of the puzzle challenge, even going so far as to throw one of the puzzle pieces into the weeds to ensure that the Fei Long member who was also in that stage of the challenge wouldn't be able to complete the puzzle.

Then, (and I'm not a viewer, but I read about it on Reality Blurred) apparently in last night's Biggest Loser, there was a "twist" where they reorganized the teams as part of a surprise, or something like that, and (essentially, here's my understanding) this guy Neil forced himself to gain 17 pounds, specifically so that he could get his team (which was composed of his opponents) into an elimination situation. It is, again, a classically brilliant strategic move, completely within the rules of the game. The show's hosts/trainers were apparently furious at Neil for "messing with peoples' lives" and such.

What these shows forget is that they are, first and foremost, games, and they are games with rules. Reality shows today are all about the "twist" because it gets people to watch and increases the ratings, but those same writers and producers are shocked, shocked I say!, when the players use those rules to their own advantage.

The same thing happened in Big Brother this season. Jen was on the chopping block, but she was also on slop. The producers had been fucking with her all season (mostly because she was that rare breed who spent time during the show sitting around reading the rules), and she was sick of it. She realized that the penalty for "eating food while on slop" was a penalty nomination in the next elimination. Having a penalty nomination for the following week would almost certainly ensure that the current week she would survive... because why vote her out now, when you can get another guaranteed shot at her next week? So she went ahead and ate... everyone was up in arms about how that screwed the "innocent" person who was on the block with this this week, etc., etc., and the producers went so far as to change the rules mid-game, all because a player knew the rules and used them to their advantage.

Reality producers are quick to use the rules to their own advantage time and again, especially if it helps them promote the contestants who have a large fan-base, or if it acts to the detriment of the "villains" of the show. But they simply cannot accept that those rules are also there for the contestants to use to their own advantage.

My old friend, Marc, sent me a link to the 10 best sci-fi films that never got made. It was amazing to me that every one of them, I'm like yup, I'd pay good money to see that movie done right....

I, for one, welcome our CyberDyne Systems automated human-killing machines.

"The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m." - T-101, Terminator 2: Judgment Day

If your "field test" can't tell the difference between methamphetamine and cat urine, then maybe it's time to scrap that field test. And maybe you shouldn't hold someone in jail for nearly two months while you sort out how brain-dead your field test is.

Yahoo!!!!! You got some 'splainin' to doooooo!!!!

Via Reason: Hit & Run:

This is what happens when you try to videotape your neighbor's warrantless search and arrest in Portland:

The moral to the story? I'm not sure... but the complete and total abuse of force by the State (see previous post on Blackwater, see the "Don't Tase Me, Bro!" kid a week or two ago) are starting to get more and more common.

It's worth pointing out, at the very least, that these sorts of abuses of authority, attacks on civilians by the ruling powers-that-be, attempts to control foreign lands, etc., were pretty prevalent in the late eighteenth century. And it didn't turn out so well for the bastards, then, either.

I'm not, at all, advocating violent overthrow of the government (that, my friends, would be a crime). However, I'm not ashamed or afraid to predict it. Neither party has a great track record on this front (the Red Team has Iraq, the Patriot Act, and Guantanamo Concentration Camp X-Ray... the Blue Team had Waco, Ruby Ridge, and others), so don't look to "the 2008 Election Cycle" to solve all your problems. It's not going to.

It's going to come down to, eventually, the population getting seriously pissed off at its leaders in both parties, and voting the bastards out whenever they try that crap, or it's going to come to an American Revolution style showdown... and the verdict really isn't in, for me, as to which outcome is more likely.

(Title is a reference to the paint job on the Decepticon "police-car" named Barricade from the Transformers movie)

CNN is running the story detailing how Iraq is saying, in no uncertain terms and with no ambiguity, that Blackwater Mercenary Death Force Security is not welcome in their country.

Amusingly, we've been hearing from the administration, time and time again, that "we are here as guests of the Iraqis" and that if we're ever told to leave, we will happily do so, etc., etc.

I think the subset of "us" known as "Blackwater" has just been seriously uninvited from the high-paying killing spree country. It'll be interesting to see if the administration follows through on its repeated promises to do as the Iraqis say when it comes to such things.

Yeah, right, who am I kidding? If we tell Blackwater to get out, who's going to commit all our atrocities for us?

Tonight, D and I went to a screening as part of the Woodstock Film Festival. I'd seen trailers for Lars And The Real Girl and it seemed to be exactly the kind of "offbeat, upbeat" movie that might be really fun and interesting to watch. When I found out it was part of the WFF program, we immediately snatched up a pair of tickets to go see it.

Ryan Gosling seriously deserves an Oscar for his work in this film. Almost all of his scenes are played against a completely non-responsive Real Doll (CAUTION! Link Not Safe For Work!) whom he has fallen in love with. He manages to convey these emotions like he and "Bianca" are really sharing special moments, even though he gets no help from the anatomically correct lump of silicone.

D was pleasantly surprised, as she was expecting something more cynical, when instead it was a really heartfelt story, set on a backdrop of pure lunacy.

This definitely will not achieve record numbers at the box office, but I predict a cult following for it on DVD, a la Rushmore or movies of that ilk. If it comes to an arthouse cinema near you, I highly recommend checking it out!

Dear Lazyweb,

After this past summer's "desktop replacement" cycle, I acquired one of our older/retired iMac computers. When it was wiped for public use, it had the "campus desktop image" installed on it. The problem is that the desktop image is a "managed" image -- e.g., it somehow phones home every time you log in and grabs some managed preferences from the "mother ship", including telling it to use the campus update server.

Obviously, this is "my" computer now (well, rather, my wife's), and not the college's, so I'd like to know how to "untether" it from the update server. Some pages had suggested holding down "option" while logging in as her, however it says that account "D" is not part of any workgroups... and then proceeds to set up a bunch of managed-preferences anyway.

I'm sure this is freakin' trivial to do, but nobody on the Apple Support discussion forums has answered this question after like a month, so I'm turning to you, the great wide lazyweb. Help me lazyweb, you're my only hope!

I had a rather interesting experience this week. Sunday night (Monday morning) as I was returning from Yankee Stadium (having had the dubious privilege of attending the only ALDS game we won), I stopped at a nameless diner at 2am to grab some grub. It was not one of the normal diners I eat at, and it was clearly a run-down place, but I was starving, and it was late, and my options were extremely limited.

When I woke up Monday morning, I felt like crap. After a couple hours of fighting my own body's urges to do things it seemed incapable of doing, I recognized the tell-tale signs of food-poisoning. I'd gotten a really bad case of food poisoning a couple months ago (where I ended up in the ER... an IV drip of fluid, pain-killer, and antacid later, I was good as new). Seeing that the "pain level" on this was heading to exactly the same level as the last trip, I drove myself to the Emergency Room.

D was out of town. She was down in Pennsylvania enjoying a nice "girls' weekend" with some of her sisters. I knew that a food-poisoning issue would be "done and over" before she even got half-way home, so there was no point in calling her and ruining her weekend.

As I was going through the motions with the ER doc, she's doing the usual poking and prodding... "Does it hurt here?" "What if I do this?" etc. She asks when I ate last. I tell her the Diner story. She seems unconvinced.

"Your pain seems like it's in the wrong spot, I'd like to order a CT to rule out appendicitis."

... and then, like all docs in a busy ER, she just wanders away leaving me with lots of questions, not the least of which is, "Hey, what are the odds it's an appendicitis?"

I consult with the ER Nurse, explaining the "D situation", how she's four hours away, and I don't want to bug her for food-poisoning but if they're gonna slice me open to fish out an organ that's about to explode poison all over my abdomen, then maybe that might warrant an advance phone-call. The ER nurse convinces me to let D relax for a while, and wait for the CT and the results of it, before we do that. And then she hands me a Big-Gulp sized cup of some crazy semi-radioactive Gatorade they want me to finish before they can do the CT.

While sitting there sipping my Big-Nuke, I decide to call my parents. I figure if I'm in a hospital, freakin' someone should know I'm there... they decide to come down to the hospital. While waiting for them, they take me away, and do my CT scan.

The CT technician was kind of amusing. Lots of good advice, "You're going to feel like you're urinating... you're not... it's just your body working overtime trying to sort out what is going on between the stuff we've put in you and the MRI itself... just relax".

After my parents arrive, the doc comes back and says "You don't have appendicitis. You've got... a kidney stone."

Wait, what? A kidney stone, at my age? That's gonna hurt like fuck, man...

"Can't we make it an appendicitis?" I ask the doc, but she is unwilling or unable to magically make my ailment be something that I'll be blissfully sedated for the resolution of.

"It's very small," she says in response, but aren't they all, really? The issue is just that the hole they have to evacuate through is small as well.

I'm sent home with a referral to my primary doc and a urologist, as well as a 190µ mesh sieve that I'm supposed to strain my piss through, hoping to catch pieces of the stone as it passes, to bring to my urologist for "analysis". I read the instructions which are basically "pee into a glass or jar, and then strain the results through that mesh". Oh, and one other take-home that will be very useful, I begin to suspect: a prescription for Percocet.

Egads, this is gonna be a long week.

I call into work, and play the "I'm going to be working from home the next couple days...." and tell a couple people why. They're very supportive. Nobody wants me to commute an hour each way where one of those ways might have to be doped up on Percocet. And I seriously doubt anyone wants me straining my piss on-campus. That's just gross.

I make my follow-up appointments with the doctors. Tuesday with my PCP, and Thursday with my new urologist. My primary doc appointment, well, that was kind of a waste. "Oh, they sent you here? You're feeling fine right now? Do you need more pain meds? OK, pay at the desk on your way out."

Wednesday morning, I need to run over to the hospital to pick up a CD-ROM with all my MRI images on it for the urologist. While in the shower, the combination of running water and warmth take their toll (as they often do on members of the male species), and I find myself letting things flow and -- hey, wait, what the heck is that thing that just shot across the shower!?!

I bend over and grab it before the flow of water takes it swirling down the drain.

Holy crap, I just passed the damned stone. Without even noticing it. If I hadn't actively been watching things happen looking for this, and if I hadn't been in pain the other day enough to go to the ER, this whole thing could have happened without me even being aware of it, that's how crazily this thing went.

So I end up the next day, Thursday, at the urologist who declines to take the stone. "Oh, they told you to bring that to me? Nah, for your first stone, I don't bother.... it'd be several hundred dollars of lab work to tell you the same basic things... drink lots of water, reduce your salt intake, avoid certain types of foods."

And so now that's it... this is me with my public service announcement message for the day: Drink lots of water. I'm not that old (although the definition of "old" is now certainly becoming very elusive for me as I start to approach ages I once would have attached "old" to)... if it can happen to me, it can happen to you. Drink lots of fluids. Keep your salt intake down.

And avoid having kidney stones like the damned plague.....

Every day my morning commute to work takes me past Kingston High School. For those unfamiliar with the area, this particular stretch of Broadway is the one part of Kingston traffic that can legitimately "suck" (for definitions of "Suck" consistent with the area.... I mean, it's not like trying to commute the 101 into Sunnyvale or something). Because there's a high school on one side of the road, there's almost always a Kingston Police cruiser parked on the opposite side of the road, watching traffic. I'm sure if I was to run a red-light, that guy would go all Starsky and Hutch on me and it'd be all over.

Why, then, when I've got a green light, does that same cop not Tackleberry the little 16-year-old punks who just walk across the road in front of moving cars as though they have a god-given right to cross the street regardless of the signal?

New York State Vehicle and Traffic Code, Title 7, Article 27, § 1112 states:

§ 1112. Pedestrian-control  signal  indications.  Whenever pedestrians
  are controlled by pedestrian-control signals exhibiting the words "WALK"
  or "DON'T WALK", or exhibiting symbols of a walking person  or  upraised
  hand, such signals shall indicate and apply to pedestrians as follows:
    (a)  Steady WALK or walking person. Pedestrians facing such signal may
  proceed across the roadway in the direction of the signal and  shall  be
  given the right of way by other traffic.
    (b) Flashing DON'T WALK or upraised hand. No pedestrian shall start to
  cross  the  roadway in the direction of such signal, but any pedestrians
  who have partially completed their  crossing  on  the  WALK  or  walking
  person  signal  shall  proceed  to a sidewalk or safety island while the
  flashing DON'T WALK or upraised hand signal is showing.
    (c) Steady DON'T WALK or upraised hand. No pedestrians shall start  to
  cross  the  roadway in the direction of such signal, but any pedestrians
  who have partially completed their crossing  on  the  WALK  or  flashing
  DON'T WALK signal shall proceed to a sidewalk or safety island while the
  steady DON'T WALK signal is showing.

New York State Vehicle and Traffic Code, Title 7, Article 27, § 1151 (b) states:

    (b) No pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety
  and  walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close that it is
  impractical for the driver to yield.

Seems clear enough to me... if they're violating the DON'T WALK by running out in front of traffic, they're in violation of two different sections of the V&T code, and deserve a ticket, not just for annoying the fuck out me, but also because they screw up traffic, endanger themselves and others (e.g., if I slam on the brakes to not hit them, and someone then hits me... who's going to find that punk and catch them to give them the appropriate tickets and blame...?)

If police departments can sit around and do lame-ass "seat belt checkpoints" in the interest of "public safety", why the heck can't they have the guy that they're already stationed at the school do likewise to these jaywalkers in the name of that same "public safety"? Seems like a no-brainer to me....