Category: Rantings from the Pulpit

The War of the War of the Worlds – The Aftermath

D'Arque Bishop

Last September, I wrote in my LiveJournal about the fact that there were two adaptations of The War of the Worlds in development. One is the one done by Steven Spielberg that everyone knows about. The other was done by a British company that aimed at making the movie accurate to the book. For reference, you can read my original posting here.

In any event, I wasn’t aware the British version had already been released by this time, until I was reading Harry’s DVD Picks for June on Ain’t It Cool News. Turns out it’ll be out on Region 1 DVD later this month… and it doesn’t look good.

You can go here to see Amazon’s page on it, but the fact that it only has one and a half stars out of five doesn’t bode well. Apparently both the acting and the FX are horrid beyond belief.

I’ll pass this one by. Now I just need to see how the Spielberg/Cruise version turns out…

The post-Jennings/Houma trip report…

D'Arque Bishop

Okay, I took an Advil last night and got a very good night’s rest; as a result, I’m feeling MUCH better this morning. I still have a slight sore throat, but that’s about it. Otherwise, life is good at the present time.

So… the first thing I did Monday morning was head over to the Enterprise Rent-a-Car right outside my neighborhood to pick up the rental car for the trip. I ended up getting a Pontiac Grand Prix, which all told was a VERY nice car. I might have to consider Pontiac when I buy a car next. While there, though, I got a call from my boss telling me to go to Corporate because their phones were down. Unfortunately, Corporate is in the opposite direction from Louisiana… I got about two or so miles towards Corporate when he called back telling me the phone issue was fixed. So, I turned right back around and headed to Jennings.

Once I got to Jennings at just before noon, I got right to work getting their server upgraded. That took about an hour and a half, and then I installed some software for the QA manager there. By about 2:30 PM or so I was done (and they were nice enough to let me raid their fridge for lunch), and so I hit the road, in order to reach Lafayette. An hour or so after leaving Jennings, I reached our offices in Lafayette and spent the rest of the work day there doing some miscellaneous work and meeting with my immediate boss. Once done there, I went to the Hampton Inn where I had booked a room, got settled in (king-size bed + kitchenette + sofa = win), and only ventured out to have dinner at Chili’s.

I woke up bright and early Tuesday morning, and left Lafayette at about 7:45 AM. I reached Houma by 9:30 AM, and from there began the process of backing up their data and doing the install on the server. Problem was, someone had replaced the routers at the Houma locations with intermittent connectivity emulators. I kid, of course, but the end result was the same: with our uplink to the corporate network down, I couldn’t complete the upgrade task. So, I went to lunch with my fellow IT employee Brent. Though we went to a daiquiri bar, all we had was po’boys and tea or soda. I finished the install when I got back (and when the net connection was back online), went to another location to install an EdgeCAM upgrade, went back to the first location to do the same upgrade there, and then went back to Lafayette. Once there, I met with my boss for about an hour discussing an issue that had come up that we needed to deal with, and then went back to the hotel. I ended up venturing back out to Chili’s for dinner again, and then back to the hotel for another relatively quiet night.

Wednesday morning I packed up, and was headed back to Houston as of 7:30 AM. By around 11:30 AM, I was back at Enterprise dropping off the car, and then I got a ride back to my house so that I could pick up my own car and make my way to the office…

All in all it was a pretty productive trip, and I got done everything I needed to get done. The only big clinchers were the fact that I got sick, and also being told I’d have to make a run down to Corpus for Friday. Fortunately, that got bumped back to Wednesday, so I have time to get ready for it. I also wish the two Who DVDs I got yesterday had arrived in time for me to bring them along with me. Oh, well… I’ll just watch them tonight.

Anyway, I gotta get back to work moving these backup tapes to our safe… fun fun.

A glimmer of sunshine on a cloudy day…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

I’ll post about the Houma/Jennings trip in detail tomorrow or Friday. As it stands now, I feel sick; I’m lethargic and my throat is sore, plus I have a fever. I’ll probably go to bed in about fifteen minutes, and try and sleep the sickness away. I’ve been feeling bad since I left Houston, though it really came to a head last night.

On the bright side, though, when I got home I found that two Doctor Who DVDs I had ordered arrived from Amazon: The Leisure Hive with the Fourth Doctor, and Ghost Light with the Seventh Doctor. “Ghost Light” is the real treat, as it’s the only Fourth Doctor and later story I’ve never seen all the way through. When it aired on PBS, I missed enough of it to be completely confused by what was going on, so I turned it off. Now I can finally watch it all the way through…

Anyway, like I said, I’ll hopefully post a full trip story tomorrow. For now, I’m just going to enjoy some cold water and then head to bed…

Appearance does matter, but so does attitude…

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_2785449

IT TURNS OUT what your mother always tells you is true: People judge you by your looks.

Just ask Shannon Nichols, a senior at Livermore’s Granada High School. Nichols, 18, recently tested that theory when she was applying for jobs.

…

Since Abercrombie would probably jump at the chance to hire the preppy-looking Nichols, she decided to test their tolerance for someone dressed as a goth. She sprayed her sandy brown hair black, layered on the heavy black eyeliner, added a fake lip ring and bared her jeweled navel.

Nichols’ Anglo poster girl pal Adams, 18, is a blue-eyed blond who looks like she just stepped out of an Abercrombie ad.

The two went to Pleasanton’s Stoneridge mall, Nichols in goth garb, Adams dressed in a jean skirt and red Abercrombie top. Adams entered the store first, followed a short time later by Nichols.

…

“The most dramatic was how the Abercrombie employees treated Sarah in comparison to how they treated me,” Nichols says. “As soon as she walked in, the cashier started talking to her and told her she could meet with the manager.”

Adams explained that she had no retail experience, and really no job experience. That didn’t matter, she was assured by a young man identifying himself as the store manager. In fact, she didn’t even have to fill out a job application, she just needed to come to a group interview being held in the next two weeks.

…

Nichols experienced a far different response from store employees, who basically made it clear: Don’t let the door hit you on your gothic backside on your way out.

There’s a big discussion going on about this on FARK, but I’m of two minds on this subject. On one hand, there’s no way in hell Nichols should have expected them to be willing to hire her. Presentation is part of a first impression, and such impressions do count.

On the other hand, if I had been a customer in the store when Nichols was in there, I would have walked out. I didn’t paste that part, but the clerk treated her extremely rudely despite Nichols being very polite. I don’t care if it’s a customer or an applicant: if you can’t treat someone with basic courtesy when they’re being courteous to you, then I have no desire to do business with you.

It’s kinda like that scene in Pretty Woman, where Julia Roberts’s character (in full prostitute gear) goes into this store and is trying to be very nice, but is told very rudely she isn’t welcome. She comes back in hours later much more well-dressed, and the clerks (not recognizing her) fall over themselves to try and help her. That’s when Julia’s character bluntly tells them that she was in earlier, and because of their attitude they lost a sale worth several thousand dollars.

The lesson to be learned here, kids? Attitude is a big part of one’s presentation, and it doesn’t help to mean to those who are trying to be courteous to you.

Sitting at the end of the weekend…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, it’s the end of the weekend, and I really don’t know if I can say I’ve accomplished too much.

Right now, I’m tired as hell, sitting at the keyboard, and listening to Club 977 on my home theater while I ponder what to pack for my trip tomorrow. My plans have had to change somewhat, as I wasn’t able to get lodging in Houma; so, what I plan to do is get my rental car first thing in the morning, and then make my way to Jennings. Once I complete my task in Jennings, I’ll go to Lafayette where the main IT offices for the company are located. After dropping off equipment there, I’ll stay overnight there. Then, I’ll head for Houma bright and early Tuesday morning. Once done there, I’ll come back to Lafayette and spend Tuesday night there. From there, I’ll go back to Houston Wednesday and meet with the CIO (who will also be coming in from Lafayette that day). I think that’ll all work out for the best; if not, I’ll have a bit of leeway in which to work with.

I really need to do something about straightening this bedroom, as it’s a disaster area. Unfortunately, as much as I might want my living and work areas to be clean, they quickly devolve into a right mess. It’s a fact of life: I have a rather chaotic nature. It irks my parents and bosses to no end, but there’s nothing I can really do about it. It’s actually funny… I’ve had more than one boss give me warnings about it before finally giving up, realizing I still do the work and know where everything is. There’s a reason Mom put a little knit patch on my bedroom door with Mr. Messy on it…

You know, it’s funny some of the things you think of. I was reading something on FARK this morning involving schools, teachers, education, and the like… and it reminded me of something that happened when I was in college. My final semester of Music Theory was taught by a professor who followed the humiliation method of teaching. If she was to ask one of us a question and the person got the answer wrong, she would make some remark or comment that would just make the student look absolutely stupid and (to me) horribly embarrassed him/her. It got to the point where I dreaded going to that class and being asked to answer a question. Well, one day near the end of the semester, I was in the Band Annex talking to a couple of fellow band members, and I mentioned how much I hated how this professor used the humiliation method. One of them, who happened to be a music education major, looked at me and said, “I agree with the humiliation method.”

I wonder if I was able to keep a horrified expression off my face.

I’m sorry, but I take the attitude that if you have to humiliate a student to get him to learn, then you’ve failed as a teacher. The best teachers, in my experience, were ones who cared and nurtured about the students, made the subject matter interesting, and went the extra mile to not talk down to the students. They made me want to learn more. They made me want to come to class. All teachers like my music theory professor did was make me hate coming to class and only learn enough to keep from looking stupid. I wasn’t inspired to learn or take an interest in the subject matter.

… I wonder how that former classmate’s career is going. *shrug*

Anyway, time for me to get a bottle of water and start packing, and then maybe I can start thinking of bed. I might post some from the road. If not… I’ll post again late Wednesday or so.

The Louisiana trip holding pattern, and other things…

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

*sigh*

Well, it turns out that my trip to Louisiana’s been postponed again. As much as I’m not looking forward to going to Houma and Jennings, I’d just as soon get it over and done with. This time I’m stuck waiting on a new hard drive to install on the Houma server. Once that’s ordered and in, I can go ahead and do the upgrade and be done with it. As it stands I’m stuck waiting for an IDE CD burner to come in so I can replace the CD burner on the server in Cypress. Looks like THAT task will have to be done tomorrow…

Sean surprised me last night at around 8:30 PM by calling me and asking if I wanted to do dinner and coffee with him and his wife. I had no problem with that, so off I went to meet them at Strack’s (a local barbecue restaurant) at 9 PM. He and Ginny got there, we sat down, and caught up over dinner. (I hadn’t planned on eating there, but I was beginning to feel a bit peckish, so I had a barbecue beef sandwich.) After dinner, we went over to Denny’s for coffee. (Yes, yes, we could have eaten at Denny’s. Strack’s has better food.) It was really good catching up with them and getting an idea of where the old crowd has gotten to. Some of the info made me raise an eyebrow (Sean’s ex married his younger brother?! She’s OUR age!), but overall, things are good. :-) Here’s to keeping in contact more after the long disconnect.

I still need to make a couple of changes to the main site… hmm. I might put in a link to my Gallery, plus maybe an About Me page. The site’s still a work in progress, so even though it’s open, there’s always room for improvement. I also kinda wish a small summary of each post posted to the LJ instead of the entire thing, but I can live with that for now.

Anyway, I gotta make a phone call for a support issue. Fun fun…

MS Office 12 to use open standards by default?

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163702981

When Office 12 debuts next year, the default “save-to” file format of the applications will be XML. Or at least a version which Microsoft is calling Microsoft Open XML Formats.
A company exec was quick to note, however, that the new applications will also support the traditional binary .doc, .xl, and .ppt formats, but unless users designate otherwise, their work will save to the XML choice. The default format can be changed during or after deployment, Microsoft said. With this version of Office, PowerPoint is brought into the XML fold, along with Word and Excel.

Backward compatibility with current file formats is also important. If a Word 2000 user ships a document to someone on the latest Word, changes made by the recipient will automatically save back to the original application’s native file format. Thus the new Word will open even a Word 97 file and save information back to that format so it can be read by the originator.

…

He also reiterated Microsoft’s past pledges to publish its XML format specifications and schemas in advance of the product launch and them as royalty-free downloads.

The current Office 2003 allows users to save Word and Excel documents to its own WordML and SpreadsheetML (XML) formats. The new version adds PowerPoint to the mix. Numoto said those formats, as well as the upcoming iterations, are completely compliant with the XML 1.0 standard.

Granted, the cynic in me wonders how much MS will keep in line with what they’re saying. However, if this goes anywhere like I think it would, this could be a very good thing, especially as far as other programs like OpenOffice.org and WordPerfect having full MS Office compatibility. I’ve always believed MS should open the formats and compete on features, just like Adobe does with Acrobat and its PDF format. Like it or not, even though I use OpenOffice.org at home, I would be foolish to say the best office suite right now is anything other than MS Office.

In any event, it should be interesting to see where things go from here.

Thought for food…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, today was a good day, lunch-wise. I got a call from my coworkers telling me that we were going to Houston’s for lunch, and that the CFO was picking up the tab. So, we all piled into a vehicle, and made our way to Houston’s (which is located at Kirby and Westpark).

My God, that food was good. It was expensive, but damn good. We started off with smoked salmon and spinach dip as a shared appetizer (yes, they’re separate dishes). Then, for an entree, I got the “Knife and Fork” Barbecue Pork Ribs. They were, to put it bluntly, the most delicious ribs I’ve ever had. Then we all shared a brownie a la mode and key lime pie for dessert. I don’t like key lime pie, but the brownie was wonderful.

My final opinion? It would be a GREAT place to take a date out for dinner. I highly recommend it.

(And yes, I brought a box of rib leftovers back with me. :-) )

Even reality TV isn’t real, kids.

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/bizarre/3201666

WASHINGTON – A Prince George’s County, Md., jury would not convict a man accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death because a half-eaten hamburger, recovered from the crime scene and assumed to have been his, was not tested for DNA.

In Washington, a jury deadlocked recently in the trial of a woman accused of stabbing another woman because fingerprints on the weapon did not belong to the suspect.

Prosecutors say jurors are telling them they expect forensic evidence in criminal cases, just like on their favorite television shows, including CSI: Crime Scene Investigators.

In real life, forensic evidence is not collected at every crime scene, either because criminals clean up after themselves or because of a shortage of resources.

Yet, increasingly, jurors are reluctant to convict someone without it, a phenomenon the criminal justice community is calling the “CSI effect.”

“There is an increased and unrealistic expectation that every crime scene will yield plentiful forensic evidence,” said Alexandria, Va., Commonwealth’s Attorney Randolph Sengel.

*sigh*

You know, I really do hope I’m never called on a jury in a case like this. I’d hate to be the one that has to sit there and agree with the prosecutor that, “I know you watch CSI, and it makes for good drama… but real forensics just isn’t like that!” One of my biggest peeves is how some of the stuff they show is outside the realm of possibility; a good example is taking a blurry or low-resolution photograph and turning it into a crystal-clear image. For that matter, I kinda know how the crime lab people feel; I’d end up watching movies or TV shows that feature such feats as using a laptop to hack into anything without a network connection or the like, and thinking, “It’s NOT LIKE THAT!”

It’s called artistic license, folks. The sooner you realize that, the better off we’ll all be.

*going back to my not-so-glamourous job sitting behind a desk, working with a Mac that can’t hack into an alien computer system and give it a virus no matter how much of a genius I might be…*