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Deeper Under God

   The following post has fewer spelling errors than you might think.

   I went out looking for more info on the person who was involved in the "Under God" case in California. I found an article on erm in the New York Times. You may need registration to view it, but that's free.

   Just from reading this article, Mark Newdow sounds like a real different person. Re sounds like the kind of person that you wish you were but, you're glad you aren't. To me, re sounds very intelligent, a bit obsessed and a little too passionate - a true Irate Weirdo! I'm glad re mentioned one of my personal pet peeves on the subject, "In God We Trust" on all of our money. Go get 'em, Mark!

   I just thought I'd dig a little further and add some fuel to this fire. But, it's funny, I stated in a few of the comments that I have no personal problem with religion, and I don't. But, I'm watching tv the other night and this commercial comes on - it shows someone ready to bungee jump. As they jump we see that they didn't attach their cord to anything. Now, when the end of the cord goes over the side, a little black box with white lettering comes up and asks "got Jesus?" First, I'm not sure how this commercial is allowed legally, I guess it could be viewed as satire, but that's stretching it. Next, what are they proving here? Even if I was a religious person, do I want to worship the god of the suicidally stupid? Last, if you are going to do a commercial like that, at least do it well. It was almost funny, but frankly I found it kindy scary. I hope they are only showing that after the kids are off to bed.

Posted by: Jericho - 7/01/02 - 1:55 pm -

Random Thoughts

Am I the only one who saw The Omen II and thought Damien really overreacted when he found out he was the anti-Christ?

So Long, Ox

John Entwhistle died yesterday. In general, I'm not too keen on making a huge deal out of celebrity deaths. But, sometimes a celebrity is also a true artist, and their death is a tragedy for the world, not just their loved ones. This is one such case.

The simple truth is, John Entwhistle was one of the greatest rock bassists ever to take up the instrument. The sound of The Who was as much defined by his ten megaton bass lines as it was by Roger Daltry's voice, Pete Townsend's compositions and Keith Moon's drums. Countless bass guitarists took up the instrument after he changed it from a barely audible low end grumble to a lead instrument. I am one of them.

To watch him play was to be amazed. His hands belonged to the fretboard. Watching his hands flying up and down the neck was like watching the Mississippi flow, powerful yet fluid, like a force of nature.

The world is now a sadder, quieter place.

Declaring Surrender

For about the last two months, I have been working in sales. I figured after multiple years of tech support, sales would be a breeze by comparison. After all, instead of having irate users calling to rip me a new one because they aren't getting their e-mail, I would have people calling me because they are interested in the products and services my employer provides. I tell them about the service, they sign up and I make some fatty phat fat commission checks.

Wrong.

I have a newfound respect for sales people. Sure, I still find them oily and unpleasant to be around. But there is some art to what they do that I just can't get the hang of. At first, I tried to write off my lack of success to the fact that we are less than competative with our pricing. But, there are people who were selling to 8 of every ten callers when I am only selling to 1. If that. I simply blow at sales.

More importantly, I hate it. Doing so badly is to say the least stressfull. It isn't just the blow to my ego. It is the simple fact that the company is only going to tolerate my lack of performance for just so long. Every day I have been waiting for the axe to fall. It has come to the point that I really just can't take it any more.

So, for once I decided to take some good advice. My wife, who works for Convergys as well, has been bugging me to switch to customer service, where she works. Tonight, I put in my transfer request. Now, I don't love every little thing about customer service. But it has one advantage over sales, and that is that I am good at it. Instead of being on the bottom end, as I am in sales, in customer service, I could excel, hopefully reducing the chances of getting laid off before I am ready.

So, hopefully I will be switching soon, reducing my stress levels a little. Now all I need to do is start the software development classes I hope to be taking soon and life may just start being fun again.

Roller Coaster of Love

   The last couple of days have been a lot of fun here on IWDC.

   First, it's great to be back and posting and hanging out here again. You'd think while I was on the cruise, the last thing on my mind would have been IWDC, but I love coming out here - I love talking out here - I love this place. Then the week I took to put together the post about the cruise kept me away even longer. There's just something cool about this page, I hope we can keep it going!

   Then, there was the Interview with Scott Kurtz. I got to tell you all how this came together. First, we love PvP, that's not just smoke up Scott's skirt. I can't entirely speak for Max, but I love it! I have strips hung around my cube at work. I send links to friends. When the character Cole started up his AD&D campaign, I got all nostalgic and tried (in vain) to get my friends to play again. PvP is a part of my life! It's one of only two web comics I read everyday.

   So, when Max and I put together IWDC in Feb., we were trying to figure out just what we wanted to do with the site. He and I both agreed that there should be a real journalism element to the site. So, what's more hard core journalismistic than interviewing famous people? Let's face it, it's the only way Playboy has kept any semblance of dignity! I thought, great, let's interview Scott Kurtz. I sent a note to Scott and he replied back the next day - he agreed! I was jumping up and down. I sent the email to Max. His response: "Cool." - the man is far too emotional!

   I came up with the list of questions we published here and sent them off - that was March 3rd. Then I eagerly waited. Then I gingerly waited. Then I waited like I was on unemployment! But I couldn't be mad - I read PVP everyday, Scott has la vida loca! He has a ton going on, then he got sick, there was some hosting problems, then other stuff happened. I knew I was going to wait for a while. And, frankly, IWDC was growing up, stuff was happening to keep me busy. Work and life were taking up my time, I forgot about it - figured it was a dead issue. Too bad.

   On Monday I got to thinking, PvP is back in order, things seem well, I'd love that interview. It's been three months, that's not TOO much of a nudge. So, I sent him a note. I really wanted to be nice about it. I mean, the guy is doing us a favor, it's not like we can pay him! I even offered to contact him next year if he was two busy. I was serious - being a freelancer ain't easy - and I'm damned jealous of him, too! But he's got what he has from getting out there and hustling! Doing the legwork. I frankly expected him to round file my note because it was the lowest thing on his list. Two hours later, I had the answers in my hands! Again, I was jumping up and down, I called Max, his response: "Cool." - time to go off the St. John's Wort, Big Guy! :)

   I scrambled home that night, worked until nearly midnight to get the interview up. Then let Scott know it was up. He then did the coolest thing he could do - he put up a link to our site! Since that went up, we have had over 2000 hits, that's a lot for us! Basicly, I have been even more useless than usual at work the past couple of days - I've spent too much time watching the hit counter! (BTW, any new readers reading this, welcome! Feel free to look around, leave comments, send us email, etc. This is as much your page as ours - welcome to the madness!)

   On top of all of that, we have some new fiction from Max below. The Pledge of Allegiance has been ruled unconstitutional. We're working on the next famous interviewee. We have some new ads on the right there. And the voicemail system is again working at my place of business. It's enough to warm your heart!

   Thanks again to Scott! Welcome again to the new readers! And now I'm off to go to bed - GOODNIGHT!!!

Posted by: Jericho - 06/26/02 - 10:54 pm -

Hank Has A Weird Day

fiction (duh)

Hank jumped back, just in time to avoid being hit by the Beamer as it sped out off the parking lot.

"DUMBASS!" he screamed. "Go back to St. Louis, you yuppie shit!"

"Yeah!" Vinnie echoed. "Go back to St. Louis. The East Side is for real men."

They stared as the car sped off and out of sight.

"You better run!" Hank shouted at last at the now long gone car. He paused a second before turning back to Vinnie and picking up where he was when he had been interrupted.

"I swear to you its true. I have made it with every stripper in that club," he said nodding toward the club they were heading to.

"Wow." was all Vinnie could muster. One thing Hank liked about Vinnie was that he was stupid. The truth is, Hank had difficulty getting lap dances, even waving twenties and fifties around. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do once they entered the club and all the strippers didn't jump on him like he was the greatest stud ever. But that was all solved when a hole in time and space ripped open right below him and he fell several thousand years into the future.

He didn't so much hit ground as regain his balance. He found himself standing where he had been, only instead of Vinnie and a parking lot full of cars, he was surrounded by several hundred people.

"The hell just happened?"

The moment Hank opened his mouth, the entire crowd dropped to the ground. At first, Hank ducked too, but it slowly dawned on him that these people where groveling to him. Then he also noticed that every woman in the crowd was dressed, just barely, like a stripper. The men all wore the same clothes too. In fact, they were all wearing the exact same t-shirt and jeans hank was wearing. That is all except the two closest to him, he seemed to be wearing very poorly made suits. It was these two who stood up first.

"Hail to you. oh Hank," the first one said.

"Umm, okay. Hail to you too. And by the way, who are you?"

"I am the serling," he replied. "And this," he continued indicating the suited man to his right, "is the dumbass."

"O," Hank replied at first. "Kay," he added some time later. In the intervening time, he had been trying very hard to figure out what was going on. Finally, he gave up and asked.

At first, the serling seemed puzzled. Then he seemed to start to understand.

"Of course. You wish to test us. You wish to see if we know how Emperor Vinnie brought the true faith to the world."

"Emperor Vinnie?"

Without a word, the serling pointed to a giant picture of Hank's slackjawed, erstwhile sidekick.

"What the hell is going on? Vinnie? This isn't funny!"

"After you fell into the sacred vortex, which brought you here to us" the serling continued. "Emperor Vinnie was driven to overthrow the false governments and profane religions and claim his rightful place as ruler. He did this not for his own glory, but to bring the true faith to the world. His destruction of the faithless is celebrated. The famine and economic collapse are remembered as just punishment, a cleansing purification through mortification."

Hank was lost. He stared at the giant picture of Vinnie as the serling kept using words Hank had never heard of, leaving him ever more confused as the explanation continued.

"Okay. Enough!" Hank finally yelled, causing a visible trembling amongst the crowd. The serling nodded.

"Of course," the serling responded. "We are wasting time, and must perform the ceremony of ceremonies."

"The what?" Hank asked, not noticing that the dumbass had slipped away.

"The ceremony of ceremonies." the serling repeated. "Your sacred elevation."

Hank was just about ready to seriously consider losing his mind when he heard the engine rev. He looked just in time to see the dumbass bearing down on him in a beamer, much like the one that had almost hit him a few minutes ago a few thousand years ago. Only this time, he didn't have time to step out of the way.

The crowd cheered as Hanks body flipped over the car and landed broken on the ground. And it was time for the serling to perform his sacred duty. He turned to the crowd, lit a cigarette and paused briefly.

"Submitted for your approval," he began. "The one true god, Hank. Brought to the future by his followers, he has just been released from this world to the next, as prophesied in the sacred books. Just another sacred ceremony, performed in, the Twilight Zone."

Scott Kurtz

   Do you like webcomics?

   If you do, most likely you know what I'm talking about when I say PvP. The creator of PvP, Scott Kurtz, has given us an interview - and we took it like the hungry, greedy dogs we are!

   So, do you wanna read it? Do you? C'mon! Do you? Do ya, do ya, do ya? Good Reader! I knew you would!

   Check it out here. This is yet another new Feature - will they ever stop?

Posted by: Jericho - 06/24/02 - 11:44 pm -

Nearly Quit

   This was a tough week for me at work. Really tough.

   Before we left for the cruise, I was pretty highly stressed out. I'm the voicemail guy, you'll notice how vague that title is. My real title is even vaguer. And, frankly, this is where a lot of stress is coming from. Not the title, but what exactly I'm responsible for whithin my job. When I was brought on, I was told that I was going to admin a voicemail box. More and more, I am becoming responsible for not just one voicemail box, but several, an entire voicemail network stretching over a dozen offices.

   This concept isn't so bad, but I'm not just admining these boxes. It's getting to the point that I am answering for these boxes. When something is broken, they look to me. When the design is poor, they ask me why it's the way it is. First, all but one of these systems is in a different office. We aren't supposed to say "branch" offices, but that's what they are. If you took all the branch offices and put them together, they would make up about half the people in the firm and half the business of the firm. But, each of these offices acts as a semi-autonomous unit. And they all complain about "The Mothership" whenever Seattle makes a decision that effects them in some way. On top of this, five of these offices use an older voicemail system that I have no training on and sometimes not even access to. Yet, not one of these offices has a dedicated telecom person, much less a person overseeing voicemail. Most (not all!) have a LAN admin who looks at the voicemail when we ask them to. For those of you that don't know, Telephony and IT are two very different worlds. Having come from the IT side, I can attest to this. Telephony and IT are coming together, but not that fast. Most IT people don't have a clue and several of them don't want one.

   Thus, I am left with a voicemail network that I am responsible for, but that I cannot touch or often access nor have authority to change. On top of that - my coworkers are getting to the point that they are forgetting that the "other" offices are involved. They forget that there is a political side to their jobs. That if they run around acting like they are from "The Mothership" they will piss off people to no end. I haven't forgotten this - and I am the only one pushing back. This makes me the bad guy. This also makes me the stressed guy.

   I'm tired of fighting this. I'm tired of explaining to my co-workers, repeatedly, the exact things that my boss has tried to explain on numberous occasions. They ignore him too and attempt to run rough-shod through this political minefield. And, you can bet, anything they do will come back and bite me in the ass later. The thing that pisses me off the most, most of thes people have been there as long or longer than I and should understand these issues. They don't and I'm the bad guy.

   Along with all of this, the voicemail system was in a pretty bad place. Anytime you install a new piece of hardware, there is always a period of trouble shooting and problem solving. Well, we just went through a major office move in Hong Kong and, I think I can finally talk about it, we have just set up a new office in Chicago. Both of these required new voicemail systems and both had their problems. The last of those just got sorted out yesterday - yes folks, a month of problems on a brand new system - a system that we were getting a ton of pressure from "on high" about. As well, there is a box that links the newer voicemail boxes to the older ones, this, too, was on the fritz. All told, three of the four highest profile systems were having problems. I wanted to pull my hair out.

   Oh yeah, I forgot about that! For about 6 years I have had a spot on my head - we didn't know what it was. Psoriasis runs in my family and I figured it was just that. But, recently it has started to spread and and get a little gross and I thought it was finally time to do something. I went to a dermatologist before the cruise, she wanted to get the disorder under control so she could diagnose it. Even SHE didn't know what it was! She gave me some stuff to put on it. I did, every morning. This regimen merely pissed the disease off and it spread out to my forehead! So, Monday I went back in, she tells me that she thinks it's Lichen Planus. If you read the article here, you will see it's a rare disease. Mine is rarer still, as it is affecting my hair folicles. At this point, I'm feeling like Baron Harkonen! To add to this feeling, they do a biopsy on my head and pull it togther with a stitch or two. So, this whole week I have not only been usuing the stuff that I was originally given, but a creme to keep the stitches from getting infected. This creme has a mind of it's own and gets all over my hair. Plus, they left about a two inch tail on these stitches, I guess so they could find them later. So, all weak my hair has been greesy and I have a new single blue hair - hopefully this will compliment the new gray in my beard. If this is LP, I'll get the stich out next week and get meds to take care of it - let's hope the meds work and that it just doesn't piss it off even more.

   So, with all this stress, there is little wonder I had to keep myself from walking out of the job all this week. There are only three things keeping me there: a) it's a great job and I'd be a fool to walk, b) Steph would kill me, c) my boss. You should never have a relationship like the one I have with my boss, it isn't healthy! I really like my boss, he is understanding and a great guy to work for. He is also the most stressed man in the Pacific NW! If I left my job I'd feel like I was abandoning him, he would never abandon me! Thus, I am kept in place by my sense of responsibility and my sense of overpowering guilt!

   But, if a spot opens up in Chicago - I'm outta there!

Posted by: Jericho - 06/21/02 - 10:15 pm -

Real Crap

It was a few years ago that I was introduced to a little program called Real Audio Player. Jericho had downloaded it to my computer (without asking, BTW). He explained that it would allow me to listen to audio downloaded from the 'net. Of course, the audio was crappy. On the whole, I was unimpressed.

Later Real Audio Player evolved into Real Media Player, which was cool not because it was so great, but because the competition blew. As Quicktime and Windows Media Player grew up, RMP started to look pretty shaggy by comparison. In general, I stopped using it and eventually stopped installing it on my computers.

Today, I decided to take it for a test drive and see if it had gotten any better. At first, I was merely unimpressed. Even on my DSL connection, its performance was mediocre. But, I figured it would not cause any harm to have on my system. That is until I opened my MP3 directory. You see, when I installed RMP, it kindly offered to make itself the default player for every type of media file in existance. I had already set my media files to open in the player I want them to open in, so I chose the custom setting and told RMP to stick to just playing Real Media files. Well, you can imagine I was slightly ticked when I saw that all my MP3's, rather than showing a Winamp icon, where showing Real Media icons.

At first, this wasn't too big of a deal. I just hoped into the file types setting and switched them back to Winamp. I assumed that as time went on, I would need to do that same to some other files types before life got back to normal. But then I stepped away from the computer for a moment. When I came back, that piece of crap, that virus disguised as a media player, without so much as a "By your leave," had changed itself back to the default player for my MP3's.

It is probably a good thing that Real Networks is not located in St. Louis, because at that point I felt a strong urge to grab a RN executive by the throat and explain to him who is the system administrator for my computer and therefore is the one who decides which media players will play which media file types. On the whole, I could still happily do that. But, I have settled for uninstalling that piece of garbage from my system.

Never again will any media player made by Real Networks be installed on my computer. I don't care how cool your media files are, if they require RMP to be seen or heard, I can live without and move on to the next page. And if any suit out there in Real Network land has a problem with that, good.

Are You Naked?

As part of my last tech gig, I dealt with security issues on a daily basis. The simple fact is, most every day internet users are connected to to net with absolutely no protection whatsoever. There are any number of hidden connections and programs that someone who knows what they are doing can exploit and compromise your systems security. While this applies especially to those of us with high speed connections, dial up users need to be concerned too. I was rather astounded with the number of attempted connections, port scans and other mischief my firewall reported deflected even when I was connected via modem.

What is a firewall? I am glad you asked. Basically, a firewall is a piece of harware or software that sits between your computer/network and protects you from unwanted intrusion. It is something you should have.

The great thing is, most of us don't even need to pay for it. The fine folks at Zonelabs make a free version of Zone Alarm, their firewall software, which is just about perfect protection for the average user. If you are running Windows. (By the way, while the built in firewall included in XP does an okay job of deflecting incoming intrusions, it does not block spyware and other annoyances that Zone Alarm blocks.

For you Linux users, as with most things, there are a number of very cool, free firewalls for you. But I am sure you know that and already have one running. Unless you are a great big silly.

I am sorry to say my searches have not uncovered any free firewalls for Mac. But there are a few good setups availible for purchase. Unless Jer can point us to something, you are just going to have to lay out a few bucks. But we all know that you Macheads have nothing against laying out a couple extra bucks for something cool.

Now, you may at this point be scoffing at my school marmish warnings. Well, go here. Click on both the Test My Sheilds and Probe My Ports links. Go ahead. Do it now. I'll wait...

See? See how open your system is? Well, there are nasty bad people out there who already know how naked your system is and they could well decide to exploit that. Unless you stop them. Get a firewall. You will thank me.

The Cruise!

   Alright, so it only took me a week - I know!

   But, here it is, a summary of our cruise!

   I'm also going to add this to the Features page. When was the last time you looked at that page, hmmm??? :)

   And, yes, I will be back to normal posting this week - I swear!

Posted by: Jericho - 06/16/02 - 10:50 pm -

The Prodigal Tech

For a long time, there was almost nothing I wanted more than to get out of the tech field. I was tired of the frustration, the poor pay and the lack of respect. Well, it turns out that frutration, poor pay and lack of respect are no more fun in other fields. In fact, they are worse. Okay, my last tech employer was a bit of a nuthouse. In fact, they almost made me long for my days doing support at ISP's. But, on the whole, I do like tech work. I miss it. It was a damn sight better than the bullshit job I have now.

The market here in STL is still a little tight. But it seems to be improving. In the past week I have found as many leads as I found in the entire month I was unemployeed after getting laid off. Maybe something good will come my way. I hope it does. I don't know how much longer I can stand my current sales gig.

Tech Fetish II

Drumroll please...

I have DSL.

Booya!

For over a decade now I have struggled with crappy, analog modems. I was even forced to support lusers who complained about speeds I would have sold body parts to achieve. Now, I am part of the high speed community. I am a low ping bastard. I have DSL!

Now I all I need to to set up an 802.11b home network, build a new computer, get a Tiqit eightythree...

© 2002 by the Gentlemen known as Max and Jericho