JetBlue JFK February 14 2007

Yes, I got caught in the JetBlue fiasco at JFK on 2/14/07. JetBlue kept everyone on the hook by continuing to show flights as delayed and rescheduled, until midnight when they announced that all flights were cancelled. They then proceeded to dump all the luggage from all of their aircraft into the luggage area, causing one to search an area the size of a football field through literally thousands of bags to locate their personal luggage.

Here are three photos I took with my phone camera of the mess. The time stamps in the corner of the pictures show military time, so I indeed was looking for my bag at 3:15 in the morning!

JetBlue only offered to let people be on standby (with hundreds of other people) for their already sold out flights, or get a refund or buy a ticket to fly out MONDAY (keep in mind this was on Wednesday night/early Thursday morning). Needless to say, I bought a ticket on Northwest, flew to Minneapolis, then flew Continental to Houston, laid over there a few hours and finally flew Continental to Sacramento arriving in the wee hours on Friday morning.

Then I fell ill and had to be rushed to the emergency room on Saturday, but that's another story.

Windows Vista - Video and missing RAM

Ok, anyone with half a brain knows by now that Windows Vista irregardless of version needs 2 Gigs of RAM to perform at an acceptable level.

I have 2 Gigs in my PC. My daughter bought a new PC with Vista Home Basic pre-installed on it the Sunday after Windows Vista was launched.

Of course it came with only 512M of RAM and the hard disk drive thrashed constantly.

Being Dad, I ordered 2 Gigs of RAM and installed it. Performance was now fine, but unlike my PC with Vista Ultimate which shows that I have 2 Gigs, hers only showed 187.5 Gigs.

Weird? Where did that 128m of RAM go? Ah, I have a video board with 512M of VRAM and her low end PC has an ATI 200 in it which shares system RAM.

Guess what? The video minimum for the Aero look and feel under Windows Vista requires 128m of VRAM. So, even though Windows Vista Home Basic DOES NOT SUPPORT AERO, Vista grabs 128m of system RAM anyway!

Too bad Microsoft can't manage to explain this to consumers.

Or hire some decent programmers.

Windows Vista - Performance Issues

The phone rings at Drips Central, a branch of the Goliath Corporation.

Me (answering the phone): Hello? If you're calling to tell me my weekly beer delivery is gonna be late, I am gonna be pissed.

Victim (an actual famous editor of a computer publication: Hello Mike. (Sniff!) I fell off the wagon!

Me: You started drinking again?

Victim: No, I installed Windows Vista.

Me: Man, you would have been a lot better off if you had started drinking again, or even become a drug addict. Of course once Windows Vista hits the street, 12 step Windows Vista programs will probably spring up all over the world.

Victim: It's too late for that! (Sob!) I've already installed it on my home and office PCs (Wail!).

Me: Didn't I already warn you about this? Vista is the spawn of Satan.

Victim: I know, I know, I should have listened!

Me: Well what do you me to do?

Victim: Just tell me the secret to Windows Vista performance. Please! I'm desperate! My entire computing world has turned into total slow motion! I feel like I am swimming in a pool of honey!

Me: Well Windows Vista won't install if your CPU is too slow, so, um, how much RAM do you have in your system?

Victim: (Choke!) One gig.

Me: Man, no wonder Windows Vista is kicking sand in the face of your PC! That's only enough RAM to boot up, not to actually do anything with Vista!

Victim: Well, uh how much more RAM do I need?

Me: For you to get acceptable performance out of Windows Vista, you have to have a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM.

Victim: But, but, that's not what Microsoft says!

Me: If you have to choose between believing what Microsoft says and smoking crack, then smoke crack. At least you will experience a lot more pleasure.

Victim: Well, thanks for the info. Now can I talk to you about Aero?

Me: Nah, it's too early in the day for me to start that gimpy piece of crap. It'll just force me to start drinking immediately. Call back later.

Windows Vista - No Sound

Yes, after installing Windows Vista Ultimate, you might notice how quiet it is.

That's because if you (like myself) own a Creative Labs SoundBlaster card, you have to go the Internet (see my posting below on that) and go to Windows Update for your SoundBlaster card to be "discovered" by Windows. Windows Update will then install the driver and you will once again have sound.

I asked one of my Microsoft pals why they didn't just fire the idiot that made the decision to leave those drivers off of the Windows Vista installation DVD, and I got the usual moronic apology:

"Microsoft did that to distance themselves from the hardware manufacturers."

Huh? Distance themselves? Microsoft is the biggest $2 whore in the world! They will hop into bed with anybody!

Hell, even at the Windows Vista/Office 2007 launch lunch with Steve Ballmer that I will be attending on Monday, guess who else will be speaking at that lunch?

HARDWARE MANUFACTURERS!

Windows Vista - No Internet

Yeah, I am running the actual retail version of Windows Ultimate on my main PC. It makes me wonder if I am just a masochistic computer consultant or what.

Anyway! Yes, I managed to install Windows Vista Ultimate in only one hour on my PC which is a Windows record compared to installing XP, 2000, Millenium, 98, 95 and Windows for Warehouses, er, Workgroups.

Of course it then took TWO HOURS for Windows Vista Ultimate to recognize my LinkSys wireless card, my wireless network and finally connect to the Internet.

Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000

Well I had some extra money which is a rare event for me, and decided to foolishly squander it on this new Microsoft web cam. I'd been looking at newer generation web cams for months, and was interested in this one even though Microsoft took a while to actually sell the darned thing.

Immediate caveat: This camera has a non-adjustable clip on the back of it that BARELY fits onto the top of a Dell notebook. There is no way to affix it to the top of an LCD or analog monitor without using Velcro or some other method to jury rig it. Also it has a short USB cable if you want to use it on your desktop. It's like 5' or so.

The good news is that the picture is awesome! The built-in microphone works great and it actually worked extremely well at the JetBlue hotspot at JFK, which is darned noisy.

It does work with the latest version of Microsoft Live Messenger. It claims to work with Yahoo's IM, but I have had zero success with it trying to interact with Yahoo IM users.

It also works fine with Comcast's video mail system.

House of Leaves

I am still struggling to read my way through this large experimental tome.

I was lead to the book by a WoW poster using this quote from it in their signature:

"this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves

moments before the wind"

Dropping Scoble's RSS feed

No loss there. Too much name dropping and ego.

A Dr. Seuss quote that I've always liked

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -- Dr. Seuss

One of my favorite authors from my childhood and even through today.

This is a quotation that most bloggers should take to heart.

Windows Vista crash cost me $100

BLEH! Yesterday Vista out of the blue began plaguing me with messages that a system device needed to be checked or blessed or some other damned thing. Anyway, to stop the stupid dialog box from constantly popping up, I renamed the rogue file that was the source of all this irritation.

Now keep in mind that the poorly designed, poorly programmed Windows Vista won't even let me change or delete a fucking ICON ON MY DESKTOP! OK?

But it allowed me to rename this file within the Windows/System32 directory, which after much research as I could do seemed to be acceptable.

Nope. After the rename, Windows Vista would not reboot normally, to safe mode or even to the command prompt.

So, I went out and bought a new Western Digital 250 gig drive at Best Buy for $89 ($96 and change with the tax). Yeah I could have spent an hour and $10 worth of gas to drive to Fry's and buy a 300 gig drive for ten dollars less, but it didn't seem worth the trouble and time. I can't stand Fry's 90 per cent of the time anyway, as they have the usual non-English speaking employees who wouldn't help you even if you were on fire.

I put Windows XP on the new drive, made it the master (DUH!), made the ass-wipe Vista drive the slave and now I can get most of my old data. I was too frazzled to think to do this one drive at a time, so now my primary drive with XP is drive E, the old drive with Vista is C and my DVD burner is D. Go figure. Makes for some interesting software installation scenarios, trust me.

All I can say is that Windows Vista has always been problematic and I advise that everyone and every company out there, to avoid it like the plague. Tell Microsoft to just keep slowly improving Windows XP. Sigh.

Snakes on a Plane - The Movie Redux

The movie met and exceeded my expectations. If Samuel Jackson (or any other star) wasn't in it I probably would have skipped the film.

Oddly when I bought my ticket on opening day (August 18) the ticket seller mumbled something about this film already being a cult movie. I replied that had I known that I would have dressed up in a snake costume. Or should that be dressed down into a snake costume? I guess it depends on how you are dressed.

Anyway the start of the film had me a tad concerned that it was going to be an extremely cheesy "B" movie. Once Samuel Jackson appeared on the scene, all that changed and the film took off to be a well made suspenseful thriller.

So what are you waiting for? Go see it!

Inspector Montalbano mysteries

Just finished Voice of the Violin, the fourth book in the Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri. This series has been a best seller in Europe but isn't very widely known here in the US.

Anyway, the whole series revolves around a police detective in Sicily, his eating, his girl friend, his co-workers and life in Sicily in general. It's light reading but interesting and complex at the same time.

Highly recommended, although I am going to have to research to figure out which book in the series is number five. I hate reading books like this out of order as sometimes the story refers back to incidents in previous books.

The World's First Blogger Doll

There are rumors that a doll modeled after Tara Hunt, the world’s most famous female blogger and creator of the HorseCowPig blog is in the works!

Naturally there are a lot of design decisions (Natural blond? Dark roots?) to be made and it isn’t certain whether or not the Tara doll will be available for the 2006 holiday season. Certainly the demand to own one of the Tara dolls from what is expected be a limited edition production run will be great.

However as rumors and details are forthcoming, we will keep you posted.

Snakes On A Plane – The Movie

Of course I haven’t seen it because the movie isn’t out yet, but whoever created the marketing buzz for this film should have a statue erected in their honor. I am envisioning something from the Soviet school with a figure holding a torch aloft surrounded by Nietzsche inspired Aryan children, kneeling at the figure's feet.

Snakes On A Plane is everywhere! Well, there isn’t a breakfast cereal yet, but don’t be surprised to see one. Even this week’s Best Buy Sunday ads have pictures from the film imposed on the screens for their TVs.

I’ll be seeing it I hope shortly after it comes out. Some places are sneaking it this Thursday night, but I’m not THAT eager to see it.

A Scanner Darkly – The Movie

This has always been my favorite Phillip K. Dick story, written during the drug holocaust days of the 70s. I too knew people that died or were damaged by drug usage. Heck even I am still damaged: “Sorry honey, didn’t mean to call you a bitch last night. I was having an acid flashback.” Right.

My problem is that I know this story very well and the film was largely faithful to it. So I can’t say how it plays for someone who has not read the book (or been involved with drugs). It’s a great story of unintentional heroism and tragedy. Whether or not the audience picks up on that I can’t say. I do know that I don’t care for the animation overlaid on the live action.

More disturbing is that director Richard Linklater’s next film is another book that I enjoyed, Jennifer Government. Sigh.

Anyway I enjoyed A Scanner Darkly and hope that some people that see it will actually read the book.

My New England Trip

It was the usual joy of traveling with my wife and daughter who evidently think I just walk around during the day and spear 100 dollar bills with a trash collecting stick. The two of them managed to do their usual routine which is to pack along more luggage than went down on the Titanic. Anything they don't have room for, they ask me to put in my luggage which in their world is probably full of useless crap like my clothing.

Well, the trip was quite educational. We discovered that Sprint has absolutely no cell phone coverage north of Manchester in NH and sporadic service (if any) in ME. Boston of course was no problem. The Internet? Ha! Not in northern NH! What is New Hampshire anyway? A forest with a government and a few towns?

And what's with the moose? NH has signs about every 50 feet indicating that you may be on the verge of hitting a moose while there are no signs in Maine about moose or any other animal.

There is an eating pattern that we did observe taking highway 25 from Conway NH to Portland ME. The pattern is you pass a pizza parlor then an ice cream store then a pizza parlor then an ice cream store over and over. It was weird. I presume that Maine residents have just tossed in the towel regarding obesity issues in the US.

So we did the Freedom Trail walk around Boston last Wednesday in the 103 degree heat with the 112 degree heat index. Did you know that the Freedom Trail walks ends in Filene's basement? Neither did I.

The highlight of Thursday was touring the Albacore sub in Portsmouth, followed by more binge shopping by the wife and daughter. I spent a whole dollar that day on an Albacore magnet which I think I probably have lost already.

Wed, Thurs and Friday were spent at the Best Western in Manchester which had FREE and excellent (except that it was B) Internet service plus a great continental breakfast which included waffles.

Friday we had to check out and move to Chocorua NH for the wedding welcome dinner. We stayed at Samantha's Inn which is slightly better than sleeping in your car but not by much. That evening we attended the wedding welcome dinner where we met what I can only presume were the immediate drinking buddies of the groom and my wife's brother's family which included his daughter the bride. As far as I could tell most of the people there were either overly inbred or else dropped on their head a lot when they were babies. Well, the food was good, and more importantly the booze was free.

Saturday we went shopping (Surprised?) before going to the wedding that night. The post wedding dinner consisted of the usual inedible rubber chicken. At least the booze was free. My 19 year old worked her deep cleavage dress on the bartender and drank about 5 rum and cokes. The good news there is that she has my high alcohol tolerance.

Sunday we went to the post wedding breakfast, which totally lacked mimosas or bloody Marys. Sigh. Well we said our goodbyes and loaded the luggage in the van and drove through ME to Boston. We stopped at the Cape Elizabeth lighthouse where the presumed heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune did more shopping even though the gift shop couldn't have been more that 20' x 20' square.

We checked into the Marriott Wharf hotel next to the Boston aquarium. No I didn't pay their minimum $450 a night fee for a room. The bride who is quitting her job at Harvard got the Harvard discount for the room of $99 and paid for it. The ransom to park the car was $40 a night, the Internet connection was $10, etc. I was somewhat surprised that they didn't have a coin slot to charge you for using the elevator inside the hotel. Was it worth $450 a night? Not unless Meg Ryan was going to drop by to tuck me in. Um, or a word that rhymes with tuck.

Monday morning the Women With Bottomless Pocketbooks managed to spend $50 on souvenir T-shirts and baseball caps at the booth in front of the hotel. It was amazing. They hadn't gotten 50 feet from the hotel before shopping. Then they walked to Filene's to resume their shopping while I stopped near there at Borders (if you fall asleep in a chair there, they rudely wake you up, trust me on this one).

Finally we got to Logan, dropped off the rental car, lounged around the airport which has no free wireless service and boarded JetBlue to connect in NYC at JFK. So, we barely managed to make our NYC connection only to be caught up in the FAA computer glitch that occurred that evening. We sat on the runway in that jet for FOUR HOURS before taking off for our five hour flight to Sacramento.

Despite all this "fun" we just fell in love with the northeast (well except for the useless people in NH) and are ready to move there if anyone will offer me a job that pays real money.

World Trade Center - The Movie

It sucked.

Bad if not almost non-existent acting, absolutely no emotional bond to any of the characters (in other words you won't be shedding any tears) and as hard to believe as it may seem, BORING.

This might as well have been a movie about two guys stuck in the bottom of a mining cave-in.

If you HAVE to see this loser of a film, save your money and rent it on DVD in a few months.

iPods lock up Windows Vista

Talk about PANIC! Yesterday I turned off my PC that I am testing Windows Vista on, and when I came back to it hours later, it would not boot up. This particular PC has an Intel motherboard, Intel Pentium 4, 2 gigs of RAM, an ATI video board with 128M of RAM and the other usual suspect hardware.

When I would turn on the PC, it would show the Intel screen from the Intel BIOS, but it would not start up the hard drive. I figured that my hard drive had finally been killed by the poorly programmed Windows Vista. Odd things you can observe on your Windows Vista PC are watching the CPU peg at 100% utilization when you have no programs running, having your monitors turn off and turn on randomly, having to wait 15 minutes after booting up for Windows Vista to “stabilize”; if you attempt to do anything during this stabilization phase of booting up, Windows Explorer will crash and you will have to reboot your PC for it to function.

Anyway, I had foolishly plugged my iPod into a USB port to recharge it. Windows Vista not only now supports booting from a USB port, it looks to the USB ports FIRST for booting up! Doh!

Well, once I unplugged my iPod and rebooted my PC, all was well. By the way besides the fact the having an iPod plugged in prevents Windows Vista from booting up your PC, the iTunes software doesn’t work under Windows Vista either, even in “compatibility” mode!

Sadly I still have Windows Vista on my PC. Windows Vista is just a dog of an operating system that smells as rank as a pile of skunk droppings.

30 Seconds to Mars uses DRM

Yep. My daughter attempted to download the songs off of her 30 Seconds to Mars CD, to her iPod, only to be stymied by the EVIL DRM (Digital Rights Management). The iTunes software simply would not recognize that she had a legitimate copy of the music! To add insult to injury 30 Seconds to Mars put a survey on their CD asking if users were unhappy that they couldn't download their songs to an iPod!

So, after attending 2 of their concerts and buying their CDs, my daughter is no longer going to be a consumer of 30 Seconds to Mars.

She just wanted to listen to their music while she worked out. The combined corporate greed of 30 Seconds to Mars and their publisher Virgin Records just cost them another customer.

An Inconvenient Truth

Go see the movie and read the book.

This is very real and quite scary. Things need to change or we will all die in an unexpectedly short amount of time.

Although their website is still a work in progress, Nature's Future is probably the best environmental group in the world for contributing your time and money to in an effort to fight global warming and to support and repair bio-diversity.

They do real work and they don't screw around with your donations.