Prolonging the magic....

I work in I.T. which I'm pretty sure all 3 of you know. I'm sure all 3 of you have called me up at various intervals in the last 7 years and heard me utter the following phrase "I can't come out I'm on call".

Call at Scottsdale isn't nearly as bad as it was in Kingman. The call volume is much lower and I get paid to be on call. Lower volumes and paid or not it's still damn annoying to be on call. Mainly because it puts my social life on hold for a whole damn week.

I know what your thinking right now... Wait when did Tom get a life? It happened a long time ago but those are details that you don't need to know.

Finally this week I threw caution to the wind while "On Call" and said fuck it, I'm going to continue my social life "On Call" or not. Now I'm not a dummy if your going to talk the talk you have to walk the walk, so to that end I took advantage of several "perks" of being on call for Scottsdale. Namely a laptop (which is actually my daily usage computer for work) and a celluar broadband card (you know those nifty data cards you people with when your in the park because the park doesn't have free WiFi yet). Laptop and Broadband card aren't the only things you need when your on call you also need your pager (yes pager because in my particular line of IT work cell phones are still new fangled technology not to be trusted), Cell Phone (of course your personal cell phone because other then the random grandparent who doesn't have a cell phone these days), blue tooth head set (have to type when your on call), and since you have so much crap anyway why not throw in a backpack for good measure. Oh and don't forget the Keyfob because it looks really bad if you can't dial to fix a problem when your on call.

OK now that we have our "On Call" kit built lets go out to dinner on a Friday night at (rolls 100 sided dice for dinner location) Rula Bula! And for kicks lets round out our party with the usual D&D sterotypes (Ogre, 2x pixies,rouge on a motorcyle, and a Paladin). OK good so we have our party established (IT Geek, Ogre, 2x Pixies, rouge on a motorcycle, and a Paldin in a pear tree) off you go to dinner...... ***BUZZZ*** ***BUZZZ***

FUCK! the pager just went off.... and you are like a block from Rula Bula!.

Drop off your party and tell the rouge on the motorcyle that you have to work. The Ogre gets the laptop booted before he bails, thank you Mr. Ogre. Once again you are alone and call into the help desk to find out what the problem is, oh this is a two for one special and you are going to need to dial in. So you find a nice parking lot and log into your laptop and fire up the broad band card which con.... dammit it won't connect.

Reboot the laptop, login, restart broadband card (throw the dice to see if it will connect this time....) and nope no connection. Repeat this act 4 more times in the next 10 minutes. While rebooting also throw a dice for how helpfull the report from the helpdesk is... not very.

So at this point it's very apparent that your laptop isn't going to work with the broadband card, start looking for a Starbucks. Hey look a Borders! They have WiFi and are always quiet on the inside. OH look all the inside tables are full, but there are a few out side that open it's only 100 degrees and you won't be dialed in for long. You sit down and start looking for WiFi score you found some! Your finally logged in to work have your bluetooth rockin this problem (throw dice for ambient noise...) This is when you notice the following things... The water fountain built in to the ground... the two guys who are far to faboulus to the left... and the two women who have hair cut to a #1 blade... both couples are not being quiet neither is the water fountain and (roll for help desk volume) the help desk is speaking in a very soft voice as well.

Damit...

Your quest for a quiet place begins again... after several minutes you find (roll for location...) the drive through of a Bank of America. So with laptop, bluetooth, and empty drive through you begin your quest to start fixing what ailes your caller. So starts your saga... (roll for time to fix problem...) 1 hour later in the same bank of america drive through you finally fix the problem (roll for problem fix...) by rebooting the whole damn server.

You close the laptop, and deposit all of the items into your back pack of IT trinkets and stash the bag in the truck. You find your way to Rula Bula! to rejoin your party. Upon rejoining your party you sit down (roll for action....) and drink the Ogre's beer.

The Ogre is not pleased.

Can you identify?

This device and it's purpose?


Winner gets a beer and a couple quality hours with Grand Theft Auto.

Still Alive...

Yes I'm still here outside of the random picture message to this rather dried up and crusty part of the internet.

Yes I'm Still Alive

That said... what the hell have I been doing?

Well the things that stand out in my mind are several marathon sessions of Rock Band in Colorado and even more marathon sessions of Grand Theft Auto in Arizona.

Speaking of Colorado I went to "Beer Mecca" aka "The Fat Tire Brewery" so there is that.

But yeah alot of Rock Band and Grand Theft Auto.

Rock Band has a strange effect on how I listen to music, no longer do I listen to a song I start to think about how the various pieces parts will interact in Rock Band... Like the drum opening to "Jambi" by TOOL... or the Guitar Solo's in just about any Led Zepplin or Pink Floyd song. I have questions about Pearl Jam too specifcally "Lukin" At one point there was supposed to be the capablity to import your iTunes library into Rock Band and be able to play those songs. I'm sure that got nixed because some record label exec was mad that they weren't making a sufficent amount of money from anything.

I do have say, any time I hear a Disturbed song on the radio I cringe when I think about the guitars/drums/vocals that would be required in Rock Band.

Good bye Denver

It has been a good trip!

No really welcome to Denver...

Ok that is more like it!

Welcome to Denver international...

From Eve (the woman not the game)

I got this txt message from Eve... I have to say I'm both disturbed and simultaneously proud of her .

"What do I type to get root?"

Why I love LINUX reason #356

When typing a privileged command you get this...

***************
tom@tk-linuxpacs:~> sudo wireshark

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

root's password:

*******************

Lets see Windows do that!

Great American past time enjoyment.

D'backs for the win!

When turning left is more then you can handle...

So I went to NASCAR for the spring race here in Phoenix last week. I am just now finally coming back into alignment with the universe.

More importantly the redneck smell has gone back to normal levels that I got calls from a few friends out of the blue. I did not know that redneck could be transmitted via cell phone.

It was a good time and lots and lots and lots and lots of cars turning left. And like any major sporting event half of the fun is the people watching. NASCAR is a most fertile ground. Grab a beer, find a concrete barrier and just wait. You will not be disappointed. TRUST ME!

What kind of people? The whole gamut... Professionals playing hookey from work (yours truly), guys with really nice Class A motorhomes that fix their NASCAR flagpoles on the top of their RV with a cigarette hanging out of their mouths, and the mullet is alive and well at NASCAR.

Am I going back?

You betcha!

Am I going to upgrade my accommodations? Not right away but hey you never know what could happen next.

Your tax dollars at work

April 7, it's an important day....

For many reasons, among them....

1933 - Prohibition is repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the XXI amendment.

1964 - IBM announces the System/360.

1969 - The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.

And not just events important people have been born on this day too!

1954 - Jackie Chan, Hong Kong actor

1964 - Russell Crowe, New Zealand actor

1975 - Ronde Barber, American football player
1975 - Tiki Barber, American football player

And some really important people passed away on this day as well.

1997 - Tomoyuki Tanaka, Japanese film producer (Godzilla) (b. 1910)

1947 - Henry Ford, American automobile manufacturer and industrialist (b. 1863)

And it's a particularly special day in Compton...

Compton, California - Eazy-E Day

Pretty much all of this stolen from the good folks at wikipedia...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_7

I will find my way from your lost wheel....

I know the weather has been way to good when I've been spending more time out doors then I have indoors. I'm move just as much when I'm outdoors (little to none) but the bright side is that I'm way more motivated to write.

And I can hear the clicks of like 3 maybe 4 mice right now as they all close their web browsers and go do something constructive rather then sit there and read this drivel.

Cool now that everyone has left lets turn the geek up to 11 here.

-- OSIRIX a DICOM VIEWER

OK chances are 99% of you have never dealt with this application before. It's a Open Source application for the Mac OS that is capable of advanced diagnostic image manipulation and reading. Translation, it's a program for looking at X-rays in digital format.

Nothing special in my world.

It's actually a pretty nifty program and I do have it loaded on my Mac and it works as advertised. Now normally something being either;

A. Open Source
B. DICOM Capable

Would not warrant mention on their own. Heck even together they barely merit mentioning. Then why talk about them? There are two versions of Osirix one being 32bit and the other being 64bit. The main difference other then the processing bits that the program utilizes is that you have to pay $149 for the 64bit extensions on a Open Source program.

I gotta say I'm having mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand they are doing nothing different from Redhat/Suse/Mandriva and the other big Open Source vendors if you want their "product" you can pay for it. Here's the rub though, every one of those products is available to freely download and use if you choose to. When you buy a license you are in effect buying support for the product. Which has been common practice for years and will continue to be. With Osirix this does not appear to be the case. You download the product and their is no support option if you would like the same product with 64bit extensions then you get the privelage of paying for it. Which when your spending $8k on a Mac Pro processing station $149 doesn't seem like much. To me though it seems dishonest from the Osirix group and flies in the face of everything that Open Source stands for.

Point is this, I don't care if a company/group/gang makes a product under Open Source and then tries to make a buck off of it. They have that right so long as the source code and all of it's pieces parts are available to whomever would like it. My biggest thing with this project is that Osirix is distributing under a GNU license yet I can't find anything on their site about the status of their 64bit offering.

Most frustrating.

Of course these are things that only I would worry about.

-- Blackberries

I'm talking about the cell phone email machines that run on celluar networks and not the fruit.

Though the fruit is most delicious.

A while back I traded my Treo 700P for a Blackberry Pearl on the Verizon network. It was a good trade. The Treo was/is a good phone, but the best way to describe smartphones is one of two ways. Those that are PDA's with phone functionality (Treo, Most Windows Mobile devices) and those that are phones with PDA functionality (Blackberry, iPhone, Sidekick, Symbian). For a while I figured I was after a PDA with phone functionality so I picked up a Treo. And while it was a good phone the speed and parts of the interface left alot to be desired in my book. Also the fact that it could be used as a defense weapon was not helping it's cause either.

The Pearl defiantly falls into the phone first category. The interface moves much more smoothly then the Treo did and sound quality is excellent (it was on the treo as well). For me the best part has been the size of the device which is very small and can be fit into most any pocket. Unlike the Treo which while it could go into a pocket it really felt much more comfortable on the outside in a holster like device. But why is this worth writing about? Simple the Blackberry works flawlessly with my 64bit Windows Vista. The Treo never as able to pull that trick off.

I flirt with the idea of letting the contract expire and then buying a iPhone, but I have a couple of qualms with this. First it's the AT&T network in Phoenix which has never inspired much faith in me (and reading reviews on the gadget blogs it seems like Phoenix isn't the only place where the AT&T wireless network would appear to be having issues). Second paying full price for a phone and still having to sign a two year contract? Bullshit I will do that!

So as I sit here waiting for a stable unlock of the iPhone from AT&T's network in the States so I can take it over to T-Mobile where their network may suck just as bad but at least they have great customer service!

OH and I won't have to sign one of those pesky contracts either. Of course a CDMA iPhone would be even sweeter, and I'm sure that will come with the flying pigs.

Reqium for a morning show....

I never had a morning show until I moved to Phoenix.

We got Vegas radio in Kingman, but I was never up early enough to listen to it and when I was my total drive time was all of 5 minutes (10 if I was going to the other side of town)

I never got up before noon when I lived in Flag.

When I first got down here Scott recommended the morning sickness to me... and I didn't care for it fart jokes and all. I instead drifted to Chuck Powell's Morning Ritual. It was smart, funny, and they played music (which at the time for me was a big deal). That was 2005.

So in the 2.5 years since I moved to Phoenix, a few things have changed like for instance The Morning Ritual. It is so canned and pre-formed now it makes me sick... 7 to 7:30 is the topic of the day call in (todays was worst daytime soap opera story line ever) after that I stop listening because it takes me 20 minutes to get into work. When I listen in work it's the same kind of drivel interviews and other things, but nothing substatinal and it all fits very nicely into the space of a 3 minute chunk of time.

I think the start of the long down hill slide was last year when Vince left... Yeah I'm pretty sure that was it. They started cutting corners here and there (the call in thing) news from the edge at the bottom of every hour (used to be twice once at 6:40 and 9:20). I think the thing that finally killed the Morning Ritual for me was last friday...I was listening to the Morning Sickness during their "Easter Keg" hunt and that is when I realized I was listening to the wrong show.

Well maybe that and Guadalupe Squares as well....

Yesterday I decided to give the Morning Ritual one more chance... and Chuck kept saying "Chuck, Colin, and Sam with you" oh no problem... Cori and Drew are just out sick they will be back tomorrow. I tune in again this morning, same thing weird, normally Chuck says something about people being sick. Don't ask me why but I decided to swing by the morning ritual myspace page and no mention of Cori or Thrillride... I bounce over to Cori James's personal myspace page and sure enough she was let go due to "budget cuts". A little more digging around the intertubes reveals that Drew is gone too.

/sigh the least they could have done is announced it maybe they did and I just missed it. Sadly the morning ritual is no more for me.

I've never given up on a morning show before.

At least it didn't become a Mariachi station on me.

The Song Remains the Same...

It's not often I get a text message that says "fuck you, I'm going home" it's even less often when I get that very same text message from my own phone. Needless to say my liver is not real happy with me and hasn't come out from under the bed for a couple of days now.

The reason?

Oh that's easy, I spent the weekend in Californa for Kinsey's wedding. Which I have to say as weddings go is one of the better ones I have been to. The personal highlight for me was the "Super C" theme as done by the "Minibosses" which if you haven't checked out well you will know very quickly if you will like them or not. As always the groom looked his damn goofy self and the bride looked stunning... Congrats guys.

And is true for all people in their late twenties when someone gets married it's a reason to spend money and abuse your liver... Which is why mine is snoozing rather soundly under the bed. Along with the drinking there was much discussion on everything under the sun, but the discussion that sticks with me the most is the one about music.

Basically it went something like this....
Nick... I usually give the iTunes store $12 a week, but I haven't been lately since nothing good has come out.
Tom/Scott/Cody.... it's not you nothing good has come out recently.
Curtis was there but he was more interested in the either the magazine or the basketball game it's hard telling with him.

That one conversation sent me down a deep dark path of thinking of what have I bought recently that is good?

The last album I bought was Bauhaus, which is a 80's new wave band that has put out their last album ever. It's ok I don't like it as much as I thought I would. This was all in the last two weeks.

Before Bauhaus, the last album I bought was the remastered Led Zeppelin Collection "Mothership" which I have been listening to alot since I bought it in November.

And as I look at the iTunes emails from the last year or so with very few exceptions I have mainly been buying "Bests Of" Talking Heads, Social Distortion, Led Zeppelin. Along with some older stuff... Pink Floyd and a couple of missing pieces parts in my Soundgarden/Pearl Jam collection.

The new music I've picked up has been real hit and miss....

The Raconteurs... not as good as I expected, but not bad
Silversun Pickups.... Crap
Chris Cornell's new album..... mostly crap
Chemical Brothers.... weak compared to their older stuff
Smashing Pumpkins.... weak and completely forgettable (in the interest of full disclosure I find 98% of Pumpkins stuff to be crap)

Mind you I had to look through my old email receipts from iTunes to tell you what I bought. So on the whole pretty forgettable.

The only band I have nothing bad to say about is "The Yeah Yeah Yeahs" and that is pretty much it.

Of course looking at the new music on iTunes I saw that "Fall Out Boy" has covered "Beat it"

I really hope that works out as well for them as it did for that band that covered that other Michael Jackson song a few years ago.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go try and coax my liver from out under my bed.