Little Willie's senseless ramblings

Saturday, December 30, 2006

As the death toll rises...

We're here at the Holiday Inn Express in Marion, instead of at home, because we've finally sold my late mother-in-laws house, and we need to get a few last things out of it. Since this same week we went to Branson is the only time we have to do it before closing, we decided to make this detour. On the TV in the area they serve the breakfast in, CNN is telling us about who has died recently.

First off, Gerald Ford, the only president never actually elected to the office. For you youngsters who don't know the story, Ford was appointed to be vice-president after the guy elected with Richard Nixon (Nelson Rockafeller -- or something like that) resigned after a scandal. When Nixon did the same performance a short time later, Ford became president. I'm sure this was probably something the founding fathers didn't expect, but that's the way it worked. At least during his brief tenure he didn't do anything wrong, and since having retired has kept to himself (unlike other not so dead presidents).

I feel good! (na na na na na na na), although it's probably a good bet that the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, isn't feeling anything. Although in all honesty, our number 2 man on the death countdown probably didn't feel anything a lot of times when he was alive. The hardest working man in show business was also one of the hardest hitting drinkers and wife-beaters you were likely to meet as well (although I guess the wife-abuse was mostly alleged). He was a great artist in his day (which was even before my time, for the most part), and his work influenced a lot of younger African American artists, even to this day.

Is there any one out there sorry to hear that Madman Saddam is dead? He certainly went out with the bravado of an Arab male. There will be people who will do violence claiming to be avenging Saddam's execution -- horse hockey! There will be people over there using any excuse to do violence, they'd start blowing things up if they let Saddam go. So for a change, a miserable excuse for a human being actually meets the fate he deserves.

Lastly, a US soldier (number 109 for the month), was killed today. No fuss made for his passing, yet his is perhaps the most lamentable. I hope that his death, and all the others, end up being worth while.

Killing Saddam was a good start...

Friday, December 29, 2006

Apple cores

Well, me and my apple are doing pretty good. I used an IDE to USB adaptor to connect the old hard drive with OS9 on it to the iMac, copied the entire OS9 system folder to the new hard drive, fired up Classic support and that was all. I even have SoftWindows98 running (although it took some fiddling to get it to run with more than 30 meg of memory). It's having a better time running old Mac software than my XP is having running old Windows software.

Oh well....

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

I've been let down...

I was planning on doing a running blog of our trip to Branson, just because I could do it, and it seemed like a neat idea. Turns out I can't do it after all. Verizon, the company that provides me cell phone coverage just about everywhere I go, won't let me do any messaging out here. I'm on the "Extended Network" (a.k.a. roaming, but for free) and the only thing that works is the phone. Fortunately the resort has a hot spot in their visitors center, so I can at least log in and do this much. The other annoying thing is -- I've finally updated my notebook to XP (and on a new 60GB drive) only to discover that I forgot the patch I need to make the DVD Rom drive in the notebook read ordinary CD's. So I can't update anymore of the software in the machine. I also can't find the right softpaq on the HP website to fix it!

What a bummer...

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Time for vacation...

We're going to Branson for a few days vacation. Look for more at Little Willie on the Road

Saturday, December 23, 2006

A Christmas Story.

About 2000 years ago (around 3 B.C.), during the time a man named Cyrenius was governor of Syria, the Roman emperor Cesar Augustus called for a census of the empire so he could issue a tax. Everyone living in the empire was required to return to their ancestral home in order to take part in this. So, a young couple living in the town of Nazareth named Joseph and Mary traveled the 70 miles to their ancestral home Bethlehem, because they were descended from the line of King David. At the time, Mary was pregnant and nearing her due date, and at the end of the long trip the only shelter they could find was in an animal stable (all the other places to stay were filled with other people returning home for the census). While they were there, the time came for Mary to deliver, and she gave birth to a son. They gave him the name Jesus, she wrapped him in cloth, and arranged a bed for him in the hay in the feeding trough.

As this was happening, there were shepherds outside of town watching their sheep grazing during the night. Suddenly an angel appeared in front of them, giving them the scare of their lives. But the angel told them they had no need to be afraid, because he had come to them to tell them some wonderful news. The long awaited Messiah had been born in the nearby city of Bethlehem. They could find the Saviour of the world in a stable in town, resting in the hay of a feeding trough. After he had said this, the heavens opened before the shepherds, and thousands and thousands of angels began singing praises to God and his glory, and wishes of peace on the Earth. When the songs had ended the angels returned to heaven, and the Shepard's decided to find the child that had been the reason for such an announcement. They went to town and when they found everything exactly as the angel had said, they knelt and worshipped and praised the child. After they left, singing praises as they went, Mary thought quietly on the meaning of it all.

8 days later, the new family travelled up to the temple at Jerusalem to follow the practices mentioned in the Law (offering for the first born, sacrifice for the uncleanliness of Mary's pregnancy, the bris, etc...). While there they met up with Simeon and Anna -- Simeon was both old and very righteous, and was promised by God that he would live to see God's salvation for the world -- Anna was a woman who had spent most of her adult life as a widow, who spent all of her time serving and worshipping at the temple. Simeon recognized the child as the one he had been waiting for all his life, and after praising God, he blessed the child and his mother, and also gave some prophetic warnings of His future. Anna went around praising God and sharing the news with those who where there at the temple.

Meanwhile, far off in the east (possibly in Syria) there were several wise astrologers and scholars, studying the skies and seeking wisdom. They noticed when a new star appeared in the far west, an event that the ancient texts foretold would indicate the birth of a new and powerful ruler for the country of Judea. They decided to make the long journey to visit this child, and honor him with gifts worthy of a king -- gold, expensive perfumes, and expensive spices. Back in Bethlehem, time had passed, the census crowds had returned home, and Mary and Joseph decided to remain in town. They found a home where Mary could care for baby Jesus, while Joseph resumed his work as a carpenter.

The wise men finally reached Judea, and going to the capital (Jerusalem) went to the court and asked where the new new king of the Jews was, so they could honor him. This was a bit of a surprise to the old king of the Jews, the Roman appointed King Herod, and he was more than a little concerned. He took the wise men's question to his scribes and scholars, and they reported that the scriptures said He would be born in Bethlehem. So Herod gave the wise men the news, as well as an instruction to return and tell him so he too could "honor" the child. The wise men went to Bethlehem, and by following the star that started their journey, found the house where the child and his parents were living. They presented their gifts, and on the advice from a vision from God, returned home without visiting King Herod first. When Herod found out, he was furious! He ordered all the male children in Bethlehem 2 years old and under killed (Herod was famous for murdering any possible rival to his throne). Joseph, Mary, and Jesus had already left for Egypt though, warned by a similar vision as the wise men. They stayed there until Herod finally died (unpleasantly, if I remember correctly), then they returned to their old home in Nazareth.

And that, my friends is a relatively, chronologically accurate story of the birth and early childhood of Christ. Doesn't quite match what you're used too? Then read the book for yourself.

And have a Merry Christmas...

Friday, December 22, 2006

ePilogue for eBay

I have been allowed back on eBay. Yippee-shi_. I tend to use eBay in spurts, buy or sell a few things, then ignore it for months. This would have been one of those times by now, had it not been for their screw up. Until spring arrives, and I decide to start tarting up my PT Cruiser, the only thing I might surf eBay for is some Mac software. Of course, even though my account has been fixed, others are still being held hostage. My employer's account is still in limbo, nearly 7 days after the suspension was supposed to have ended. One of our customers had his Pay Pal account frozen because he bought stuff from us (and eBay owns Pay Pal). I've worked retail for several years, and if we treated our customers the way eBay does, we'd have been put out of business long ago. And don't think it has something to do with the size of the company (OK, maybe some, but), you don't see WalMart treating customers like that. Sears used to be that way (not locally, but as a corporation), now look what's become of them. One day eBay will find someone else getting all the action, and they'll have to sell company assets on their own website.

And I still haven't gotten an apology...

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Putting things off...

I've mentioned this before -- My PC is 4 years old and I've been meaning to replace it for a while. Everytime I sit down at the NewEgg website I'm confronted with a myriad of options and I can't decide, so I put it off. At first I was going to go with a nice high numbered socket 939 Athlon processor and a pair of 6000 series nVidia cards in SLI. Then it became and Athlon X2 in an AM2 socket with 7000 series cards in SLI. Then intel came out with the Core2Duo chips -- but what motherboard and graphics? There are few, stable nVidia SLI boards available, so I might have to go with ATI cards. Then came the big to do about DirectX 10 capable video cards, and now ATI has a dual card setup that doesn't require an external kludge setup to work. The latest hurry up and wait item is the upcoming quad core processors.

I make every effort to maximize my performance dollars, which explains why the machine I spent only $800 to build 4 years ago is still a passable performer for a lot of stuff. I am a realistic man though, and I know that Bioshock (one of the coming titles I'm keenly interested in) and UT2k7 (love the tournament, what can I say) are not going to run worth a darn on my old rig.

And if Monolith comes out with a new NOLF game based on the Fear engine, I'm out of luck...

A few musical notes...

I must be extremely out of touch with music these days. They've been doing a retrospective on the best music of the year on Slate.com -- and I don't listen to of any of the stuff they're talking about. I've only heard of some of the people they're mentioning, the rest is a complete void for me. The hip-hop stuff I've only heard because I get people asking for them as ringtones (which means I get to hear them in 40 second bursts), and none of it's appealing to me. I'm thinking "thank God for satellite radios and CD changers", because that's about all I listen to anymore. I've got Sirius Radio's Classic Rewind running during work, while I listen to Laugh Break or Blue Collar Comedy while in the car. In the truck, I'll sometimes listen to Mr. Buechner's Dream or the latest disk from my friend Jim (a.k.a. J Gemini), but for anything out now... Let's face it, MTV is watched less in my house than ESPN is, and the only time I stay on VH1 is to watch My Fair Brady, or a little bit of Breaking Bonaduce (or maybe Fat Club).

Here's something I didn't know -- while I was typing this, the music that plays before the Rush Limbaugh show started up. That would be fine if I was listening to the local talk radio station instead of the music channel. Turns out it's a real song by the Pretenders called My City Was Gone.

That's something worth listening to...

Location, Location, Location

I'm walking around the house this morning, all sorts of blogable thoughts going through my head -- but I can't sit down and write them because I'm getting ready to head off for work and can't take the time. Can't use my cell phone and the mobile blog because the cops frown on you texting and driving at the same time. So I get to work, deal with some customers ,

And now I can't remember what I was going to say...

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

I almost wish I was a hacker...

eBay is ignoring me now. I followed the instruction for reinstatement and now nothing. So I sent them in again. And again. If I were a hacker I'd email-bomb them with it. They still haven't replied to my employer at all -- and they still have one of our customers paypal account locked out. I don't believe I've ever seen a business with such pathetic customer service in my life -- and I'm 41 years old.

And I still haven't got my apology either...

Monday, December 18, 2006

Just what does a blank look like?

I've been kind of enjoying the fact that blogger actually functions like it's supposed to most of the time (as opposed to years ago when I first tried it). It's been nice, when some idea or thought comes up I can put it down and get it out. Problem is, now that I 've got a way to vent whenever I want, I can't think of anything worthwhile to say. I mean I can only gripe about eBay so much before even I get tired of it. And for as liberal as Slate.com tends to be, there's enough neutral (and even some conservative) content that I won't bust their chops too bad. Not that it matters too much, there probably isn't anyone reading this -- but for now I'm just drawing blanks.

Even though I don't know what they look like...

Friday, December 15, 2006

More time wasting

Since Blogger seems to be behaving itself (except for this odd little bug when posting from time to time), and they offer the service, I decided to set up a mobile blog. Little Willie on the Road probably won't see a huge amount of posts, but will give me a chance to comment when I feel the need to.

Open the pod bay doors, eBay...

You know what? I think the master computer at eBay has to be a early prototype of the Hal9000 from the movie 2001. It sent me yet another message (this time from "Bobbie") that appeared to be version 1.4 of the previous response. If it follows the same cycle, I should be getting a survey request so I can tell eBay how well they handled my customer service inquiry.

What I think is happening is that their system made a mistake, and instead of following it's rules, I've called it out. Now it's beginning to panic -- trying to get me to go away before it gets caught out. I suppose I should be glad eBay9000 doesn't have access to anything that can kill me (though maybe I should contact my bank and credit cards, just incase Paypal tries to steal my money). Unfortunately theres not enough time to see how far it would go, because my sentence is up tomorrow night.

Then the excrement hits the pod bay doors...

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Take a snip out of HIV...

There seems to be a growing buzz on the latest studies that pretty much prove that circumcision helps reduce the chances of trasmitting HIV. This has two groups up in arms -- the anti-circumcision people of course, they've been yelling for years how they were mutilated without thier consent when they were infants. Now it turns out that maybe the doctors were right about it all along. The other group is the safe sex crowd (the condom pushers). They're calling out that circumcision is no substitute for safe sex (just like more conservative groups cry out that safe sex is no substitue for abstinance until marriage). My response to them would be,"They're going to have sex whether they have a condom or not, so offer them what protection they can get".

Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

Oopsie, you could be a winner...

I was just perusing the suspected spam list on my soon to be cancelled Earthlink account (I've been on a cable modem for several months now, and since I can use my cell phone as a modem when we travel, I'll be bidding farewell to Earthlink), and I was reminded of the ploy spammers use to get your attention. Most of the email addresses I use are a name, but not my name (see if you can guess what name that would be -- no, but close). So when I see some spammer who has a fantastic deal that Willy has to be a part of, I immediately know it's ignorable. But that brought a thought to mind, I set up an account called oopsie@... that I use when subscribing to something suspect. I don't check it after I get whatever information I need from the questionable site -- and given the size of my mailboxes now, I don't worry about it (FWIW, I recently checked and saw a lot of messages from the sites I used it for, but no spam at all). So I wonder how long it will be before I see a header saying

Oopsie, you could be a winner...

Apple part ]|[

Ok, so far so good, almost. OSX runs fairly well, although I am frequently reminded that this is only a 600 Mhz machine that's 5 years old (although my 4 year old PC desktop outperforms it by a huge margin). I've got Firefox and Open Office loaded on it now, but apart from that my software choices are limited. I had a few bits of mac and PC/mac software already (including Softwindows 98, which would increase the usable software amount a bunch), but it turns out none of it runs on OSX, it needs OS9. My OSX install disks won't let me get to the inbred OS9, and I'm not mac knowledgable enough to snag it off of my old hard drive. So for now, I'll fiddle with it while my PC runs Virtual Village -- they say iMovie is so much better than anything the PC can do.

It's got a 120 Gb drive in it, so I guess I'll find out...

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

eBay responds...

Dear Bill,

Thank you for writing to eBay regarding the suspension of your account.

As you are no doubt aware, your account has been suspended for a minimumof 7 days because you violated the eBay Shill Bidding policy. To learnmore, go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

Unfortunately, since it hasn't yet been 7 days since your suspensionbegan, it's too soon for us to consider reinstating your account. After 7 days have elapsed, please reply to this email. At that time we'll behappy to provide you with the requirements for your account to beconsidered for reinstatement.

Thank you for assisting us with this matter. We look forward to workingwith you to reinstate your account.

Sincerely,

Myrtle
eBay Customer Support

It took me less than 3 seconds on Google to find 19 other auction sites I can do my business at -- I shouldn't have to put up with this kid of crap from anyone taking money from me. I sent them a letter back regarding my requirements for reinstatement -- an apology for insulting my intelligence and impugning my character. I can live a long and happy life without eBay -- how many more people like me can eBay live without?

Monday, December 11, 2006

Apple a day part ][

I finally got my iMac up to speed, 512Mb of memory, 120Gb hard drive, DVD rom drive, IBM multimedia keyboard and a Microsoft mouse (I thought those last two items were a nice bit of irony on my part). OS X 10.3 is installed, updated to 10.3.9 -- and now I'm working on getting open office installed. The interface looks nice, though things don't work the way I'm used to. At least the mouse is doing everything correctly now (scroll wheel, button presses). I still have yet to try a printer and my camera (and some removable volumes) but the DVD player works fine.

I'll let you know more later...

You can't download that.

The entertainment industry keeps raising the alarm against downloading entertainment. Don't download that song/movie/tv show, you're stealing money from the artist when you do that. I find it interesting that the only people complaining about downloading are the people who are already rich because of the content. I've posted my original, copyrighted music on the web, as has my friend Jim -- you want to download and listen to it? Go ahead. We'd get really mad if you started selling it without our permission, or performing it without cutting us in. There are some more reasonable artists who also do the same, so you wonder how huge the problem is. Record sales were the best when the original napster was sharing everything without restraint. But here's what really annoys me.

They say you can't share music, because you don't buy the music, you buy the right to listen to it. OK, I bought Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door years ago when I was in high school, and bought it again several years later on cassette. That means I've paid for the rights to listen to it twice right? I should have the option to send one of those in to the record company and have them send me a new CD for the cost of producing it, right? I have all the James Bond films (except Casino Royale) on either tape or DVD, so I shouldn't have to pay full price for the new DVD box sets right? How about this, my 12 year old scratched the hell out of her Barbie Nutcracker DVD, I should be able to send it in for replacement, since I can't legally make a backup safety copy, right?

And they wonder why people download movies...

Sunday, December 10, 2006

eBay can bite my shiny metal ...

Computers are stupid, have you ever noticed that? They can only do what you tell them to, and they'll do exactly that. And you know what else? Businesses that rely completely on computers are even stupider.

Take eBay for instance.

Their computer system noticed that the same ip address accessed the same listings with 2 different accounts -- added 2 and 2 together and came up with 22. You've been shill bidding and we're suspending your account for 7 days -- then you have to beg our forgiveness. Of course, it didn't say anything when the auction was still going, or when the winning bidder hadn't paid yet, or even before the package shipped out. They did do it after a large number of items had been listed (thus allowing them to steal the listing fees when they cancelled the auctions due to the suspension). I've been an eBay customer for over 8 years -- never big, but there. When I first started on eBay I put a link on my web site that said, "Have you been to eBay yet?". It didn't take too long before I changed the link to say "Are you tired of eBay yet?". Especially when I started noticing the prices on eBay costing more than what Internet stores charge, and customer service non-existent. The link disappeared completely long ago.

Needless to day I'd tell eBay to bite my shiny metal ... but I'm still trying to get an item I purchased a month ago straightened out, and I communicate with the guy through my now suspended eBay account. So I'm screwed right now because even though I didn't do what I'm accused of, I did break one obscure little section of the EULA.

So when I finally finish the last of my business I will tell eBay the same thing hundreds and thousands of other former users have.

Bite my shiny metal ...

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

WOW, my car's finally thawed out...

We had a particularly nasty ice storm go through last week, and deposit up to a half inch thick layer of ice on everything outside. There are still big areas with downed power lines and fallen trees almost a week after the fact. We've even got National Guard humvees cruising around looking for people who need help. Last night I finally started trying to crack through the layer of ice on my car (the truck is almost out of gas), and managed to drive it to work. I just glanced out side a few minutes ago and thought,

Wow! my car's finally thawed out...

The Prez can't win, part II

Michael Kinsley, head honcho of Slate.com, wrote the other day that Jenna and Barbara Bush (the presidential daughters, not his mom and someone else), have a resposibility to either publicly stand behind thier father or publicly decry his policies. Why? They aren't publicly elected officials, paid by the public to be the First Children. As he writes in his article, they're over 21 and have a right to speak for themselves. He seems to think that means they have to join his crusade against thier dad or make themselves targets for his website. I think the same constitutional guarantee that allows Kinsley to shoot his mouth off, allows them to keep thier mouths shut. I think it shows a great deal of previously unshown maturity for them to stay silent and out of the limelight.

I'd say it would be nice if Kinsley did the same, but then what would I gripe about???

Monday, December 04, 2006

Creepier than frenching Madonna

Rosie O'Donnell, talk show host and noted lesbian activist, wants Brittany Spears to move in with her and the kids so she can provide her with some "guidance". She makes this invitation after pictures of Brittany flashing her underwear-less crotch show up all over the Internet. Not when she announces her divorce from the loser known as fed-ex. Not when she says she's marrying the loser Kfed. Not when she has her stupid little 24 hour marriage to -- whatever his name was. Not when she breaks up with Justin Timberlake. Only after pictures of her shaved, pantyless, crotch, show up all over the Internet does she want Brittany Spears to move in with her and the kids so she can provide her with some "guidance".

What kind of guidance is she planning on offering?????

Friday, December 01, 2006

The Prez can't win

George Bush. W. The guy in charge of the country. The guy who's the reason every thing's so bad. The guy who lied us into invading Iraq so he could get their oil (still waiting for that to happen). Apparently he's a Nazi now -- according to a Slate.com article. And here's a really amusing one -- after slamming him for giving tax breaks to all his rich friends, he's being accused of causing they're net value to go down. Yes, the most rich-person friendly president ever is making life worse the the richest .05% of the American people. Our American wealthy have slipped to 5th in the world (after Asia, India, Russia and Bill Gates). The cost of being rich in America keeps going up, and it's all W's fault. I'm sure it has nothing to do with government regulations on things that rich people do. You know, the kind they only worry about in places like Hollywierd, Big east coast cities, big Midwest cities, big west coast cities, and anywhere there are free thinking (but be careful what you say though) colleges -- you know, where liberals tend to congregate. I bet they don't worry so much about such things in, oh, say Russia, or India, or Asia, or the Middle East -- or any basically less than free area of the world.

No, I'm sure it's all George's fault. It has to be.


Right???