All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287953,00.html

WICHITA, Kan. — As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said.

The June 23 situation, captured on the store’s surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday.

Police have refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation.

“It was tragic to watch,” police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. “The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting.”

The woman was stabbed during an altercation that was not part of a robbery, Bassham said. It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said.

Calloway, 27, died later at a hospital.

Two suspects have been arrested. A 19-year-old woman was charged with first-degree murder. Another suspect who turned himself in had not been charged as of Tuesday, the Sedgwick County prosecutor’s office said.

The district attorney’s office will have to decide whether any of the shoppers could be charged, Bassham said.

It was uncertain what law, if any, would be applicable. A state statute for failure to render aid refers only to victims of a car accident.

Dear God in Heaven. *sigh* I almost have no words. Once again, man’s inhumanity towards their fellow man makes me wonder if we really deserve to survive as a species.

As for the DA’s dilemma, though, there is a solution: release the shoppers’ identities to the surviving family. Let them sue the shoppers into oblivion for not rendering aid. There might not be a recourse in criminal courts, but I’m sure a jury in a civil court would love to take up the slack…

The runaway bride returns to the TARDIS? Oh, boy…

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2007/07/04/46831.shtml

Catherine Tate accepts proposal to star in fourth series.

Catherine Tate is set to return to the TARDIS for the complete 13 week run of Series Four of Doctor Who.

Award winning comedian Tate will reprise her role as Donna, the runaway bride from last year’s Christmas special, despite turning down the Doctor’s invitation to travel with him at the end of that adventure.

When Catherine was asked if she would like to become The Doctor’s new companion at the press screening of The Runaway Bride, she replied, “I would love to, but no one has asked!” Well, now they have.

“Catherine was an absolute star in The Runaway Bride and we are delighted that one of Britain’s greatest talents has agreed to join us for the fourth series,” announced Doctor Who’s executive producer and head writer, Russell T Davies. “Viewers can expect more ambitious storylines and a whole host of guest stars in 2008.”

Okay, I can see how people might like Donna. Me? I hated her. She was a loud, obnoxious, clueless dumbass. I know Jenn agreed with me when we were kind of hoping she’d get killed during the last Christmas episode. I MUCH prefer Martha, thank you.

At least the rumours of Freema Agyeman leaving are false; she’ll be in a few episodes of Torchwood and return to Doctor Who mid-season. Still… I can’t say I’m not disappointed that we’ll be seeing more of Donna. All I can hope for is that she won’t grate on my nerves like she did last time.

In honour of the Doctor Who season finale… stolen from Jenn.

D'Arque Bishop

Doctor Who Meme

When you see this post, quote from Doctor Who on your LJ.

The Doctor: “Let me guess….my theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters and you don’t like my tie?”

Gwendoline: “I think Mister Matthews is confused….”
The Doctor: “Never mind that, I’ll have him completely bewildered by the time I’m finished.”

Tegan: “Will the TARDIS still function? The console blew up!”
The Doctor: “Oh, probably did it a world of good.”

Tegan and the Doctor, in “Enlightenment”

The Doctor: “You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.”

And my addition…

Lethbridge-Stewart: You know, just once I’d like to meet an alien menace that wasn’t immune to bullets.

No desktop Linux for me for the time being…

D'Arque Bishop

As a lot of people know about me, I’m a big Linux user. I’ve used it as both a desktop and a server OS, with the recent emphasis being much more on as a server OS. When I put together the most recent incarnation of my main PC, I had briefly toyed with the idea of dual-booting Linux and Windows. In the end, though, I decided to instead make it an entirely-Windows machine, as my two 320 GB SATA hard drives were linked together in a RAID 0 configuration, and to my knowledge the current Linux distributions didn’t support my RAID controller yet. Recently, though, I found that at the very least Fedora Core 7 (and possibly Ubuntu) could support my array via dmraid. So, I ended up doing some research recently on the feasibility of putting Linux back onto my main PC. Unfortunately, I eventually decided against it, as I found more than one stumbling block towards migrating to it, especially on a full-time basis.

  • While I’m sure a generic driver might work, I’d prefer to use ATI’s official video card driver for Linux. As of right now, ATI’s current released driver package will not work with Fedora Core 7. It’s not that big of a deal, for the most part, but if I want to do any gaming (like DOOM 3, Unreal Tournament 3, or anything that might use Cedega), I’ll need the official driver’s 3D support.
  • I use iTunes for listening to my music library. While standard music players for Linux can be made to have MP3 and AAC format with little issue, some of the CDs and tracks in my collection are protected AAC files from the iTunes Store. I’d have to figure out a way to get iTunes to run under WINE or some variant like Cedega.
  • My keyboard and mouse are a Logitech MX5000 Bluetooth desktop. It’ll be a bit of a pain in the ass to get them working with Linux. It’s not impossible, mind you, but it will involve a lot of messing around that I really don’t feel like doing. Bah.

Granted, only one of the three reasons is a true show-stopper. Still, they’re big enough hurdles where I really don’t feel like messing with it right now. (The days of messing around with my machine at home are gone, for the most part. I want my machine to Just Work.) My Windows XP install is working fine, and I don’t see a real need to change it yet. It’s not like there’s anything out yet that requires an install of Windows Vista, and most things I would do in Linux have a Windows equivalent anyway. Ah, well… I suppose when the time comes to swap out the main PC, I’ll bite the bullet and get a Mac of some kind (either a Mini or a MacBook with a docking station). Until then, I’ll just stick with what I have.

What a week…

D'Arque Bishop

Bleh. It’s really been a long and drawn-out week for me. Unfortunately, this week is going to be more of the same. The only difference is that I won’t be out as late this week as I was last week. On Monday, our apps director and a consultant had arrived from out of town, and each night last week (except for Friday) I went out to eat with them and/or get drinks. On Monday, we went to Houston’s for dinner, and had drinks at a local bar afterwards. Tuesday night we had dinner at Pappadeaux’s, and went to their hotel’s pool afterward to have some drinks. On Wednesday night, we met the CIO and sysadmin over at the Cheesecake Factory, followed with me meeting the sysadmin for drinks afterwards. Thursday night, the apps director and the sysadmin had already left for Louisiana, so the consultant and I ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. It’s amusing, in a way… I’d been to the Hard Rock Cafe in London twice, and the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas once, but I had never been to the Hard Rock Cafe in Houston before Thursday. It was fun, though…

In addition to helping the apps director and consultant get a new software package operational, I also was given the fun job of working on getting the new IT area at our office operational. It wasn’t entirely easy or stress-free; I managed to get the office onto the network by Wednesday morning (our official move-in date), but we found out the hard way that some roaches had managed to make the area their own as well. We killed some of them, and arranged for an exterminator to come out. On Thursday I got our wiring people out to cross-connect phone lines, and got my coworkers’ phones operational. (My phone is an IP phone, which plugs into the network.) Also, the exterminator came out to get the roaches dealt with. Things went downhill on Friday, though, as our brand-new AC unit died. :-/ We ended up using two mobile AC units until the AC was repaired, but still… meh.

As for this weekend, it was spectacularly uneventful, other than the fact that I took Mom to the Cheesecake Factory for her birthday dinner last night. I also bought a couple of pairs of Dockers pants for work, but that was neither here nor there. I also FINALLY got around to watching the Ultimate Avengers movie I had rented from Netflix today; it was actually pretty good, though I admit it went a lot faster than I was expecting. On the tech side, I didn’t do much other than remove a couple of unused mail accounts and lock out POP3 access for those people who only use my webmail, and also upgraded WordPress on Sean MC’s and Lemon Jinny’s blogs. Ah, well…

This week should be a little less stressful, though. The two main creature comforts for the office will be arriving tomorrow… namely, the coffeemaker and the water cooler. In addition, the Transformers game should be out on Tuesday, so I’ll probably stop by Fry’s and pick it up. That should give me something new to play this week. :-) Ah, well… for now, considering I wasn’t home until 11:45 PM three days this past week, I think I’ll go relax and then possibly turn in early. It’s going to be a long week.

Is it the end of Sunday already?

D'Arque Bishop

Bah. This weekend went by entirely too quickly. A shame, really, considering how little I’ve done.

About the main thing I did of note yesterday was take Dad to dinner at PF Chang’s for Father’s Day. Once again I was smart and had made a reservation beforehand (this time, on Thursday while still at Cardenas). We had enough time to get drinks from the bar before we got buzzed to inform us our table was ready. As we were meeting the hostess to be seated, I got the impression some people waiting were giving us dirty looks. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s what happens when you don’t plan ahead. Anyway, we were seated, and had a wonderful meal. I decided to be different this time and got the chengdu spiced lamb as opposed to my usual Chang’s spicy chicken. I must say, it was quite delicious. Mom’s crispy honey shrimp was quite good as well. What ended up being unexpected was the fact that they served us fried rice on the house. (Their fried rice is generally served as a separate meal considering everything they put in it.) Dad was very appreciative of the meal, and we ended up going straight home afterwards.

Today was more or less uneventful, for the most part. I haven’t really done anything of note save relaxing. I suppose that’s enough, really.

The rest of this week is what will be annoying. I’m going to have to babysit one of my IT coworkers as he installs a new application in our datacenter this week. In addition, I’ll have to catch up on tickets that have been piling up while I was out last week, AND we’re going to be moving into our new offices this week. I swear I’m probably not going to have time for everything. On the bright side, the coworker who is coming in, Brent, will probably be good for some after-work entertainment Tuesday or Wednesday. Also, a former coworker wants to do poker on Thursday, so we’ll see how that goes. I’ll also be scheduling some time to get the windows on my Avenger tinted; I got a check from the people financing my old car last week reimbursing an overpayment, so that money will go to the window tinting. :-)

Ah, well. I’ll go ahead and go to bed in a few minutes, in order to rest up for the rest of the week. I get the feeling I’m going to need the rest…

The Legend of the Three-Legged Dog.

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

In a factory complex in Cardenas, Mexico, there lives a dog with three legs. He has no known “proper” name, but the locals refer to him as the Three-Legged Dog. Now, this dog is smart. He always knows where to go to get rides from the trucks traversing the facility. More to the point, he has his way with the ladies. On several occasions, while the other male dogs are fighting with each other, presumably for the right to one of the females… he’s already off to one side having his way with them.

If you have some food, and some time… if you feed him, the Three-Legged Dog will impart his wisdom to you.

Yes, I’m back from Villahermosa. It was a long and sometimes frustrating trip, but all in all I got almost everything accomplished that I needed to.

I arrived in Villahermosa at 9 PM on Tuesday. Once through immigration and customs, I was met by the VP overseeing our Mexico facility and the Mexico facility’s general manager, who ended up taking me to a brief dinner at Bennigan’s. (Yes, they have a Bennigan’s in Villahermosa.) After a small meal (I had eaten at the Chili’s in Terminal B of Bush Intercontinental Airport), we went to the hotel I was staying at. It was the Holiday Inn Express in Villahermosa. All in all, it was a very nice hotel, complete with hardwood floors and a walk-in shower. I ended up setting my alarm for 5:15 AM, as we were leaving for the facility at 6:20 AM, and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning, to see it was 6:05 AM. Apparently I hadn’t noticed that the clock was 12 hours off. Crap. After rushing to get ready, I made it downstairs only a couple of minutes late, and we made our way to the facility. While on the way, the VP told us about the Three-Legged Dog. He ended up becoming a recurring theme throughout my stay there, as he was constantly referenced as an authority on how to get things done with the ladies. (This was despite my saying I didn’t need help as I already have a gf, but I digress…) I managed to get quite a bit done, and at 5 PM we made our way back to the hotel (with a stop at Office Depot for some equipment). I got online and did some work and talked to Misty, and at around 8:30 PM met up with the VP and GM to head to the airport where our CFO was arriving. His flight arrived (30 minutes late), and we all went to… well, Bennigan’s for dinner, which was packed with soccer fans watching the match between Mexico and Panama. After we finished eating, we went back to the hotel to rest.

The next day I got up at the appropriate time, and met the VP and CFO for breakfast. We made our way to the facility, where I completed the network hookup and inventory with one small exception (a print server was malfunctioning and I didn’t have a local replacement, so I wired something up temporarily). I ended up going back to the hotel at 6 PM with a couple of the hands that were in from Houma; later on, I met up with them and the others at Rodizio for dinner. Much fun and joking was had there, especially as one person wanted to meet with some hot women. He even asked the manager to get some over. After doing so, he looked at me and said, “You see, the Three-Legged Dog would be proud.”

I looked at him askance, and replied, “No, the Three-Legged Dog would say, ‘Why the hell are you asking the manager for help in getting women?'”

After we got done eating, we all retired back to the hotel. The next morning, I was up at 4:45 AM, in order to make it to the airport for my 7 AM flight. I was back in Houston by 10 AM… and back at the office by 11:30 AM. Bah. (I hadn’t planned on going in, but my fellow tech/assistant was out and I had to get the replacement print server configured and shipped out by the end of the day.)

So, all in all, it was a very productive trip. I didn’t really want to go, as work had been piling up at the office (and continued to do so while I was gone), but I got almost everything done that I needed to. All I can say for now is that it’s a good thing the other IT guys are getting passports. Now one of THEM can be the one to go when they’re ready to implement the time clocks. :-)

Whereever I may roam… damnit.

D'Arque Bishop

I admit to annoyance.

I guess I should have known this was going to be a terrible week when I was putting the Avenger into the garage yesterday. Despite my being careful, when I opened the door I accidentally jammed it against a support board. I got it unstuck, but it took a small one-inch strip of paint off the door edge. *grumble* I took the parents to dinner at Friday’s last night; on the way home, we stopped by Advance Auto Parts to buy new door edging for the car. Now the strip is hidden, plus the door is protected. I also ended up getting replacement license plate frames for the car, as I didn’t like the ones from the dealership. The new ones are plain black metal, and match the car very well. However, I digress…

I got to the office this morning, and pretty much had to hit the ground running. Over the weekend we had finished a massive upgrade to our ERP software, and I had to deal with many of the post-upgrade support issues. In addition, I had to get a coworker’s new Blackberry operational before he left for China, and before the day was over I knew I would have to go to the datacenter to work on some of the terminal servers. Then, just after lunch, the bombshell was dropped.

Tomorrow evening I’m leaving for Villahermosa, and I won’t be back until Friday morning.

*sigh* I had known this trip was coming, but I had been hoping for a week’s more leeway… especially as I had just gotten back from a two day trip to Odessa on Friday. Still, it annoys me. I had hoped to go to a former coworker’s new house on Thursday to play poker, and that just got shot all to hell. Oh, well… at least I won’t be the only one from the company there. One of the VPs is going to pick me up from the airport tomorrow night and take me to the hotel. It saves me from having to get a cab and trying to communicate with a taxi driver who can’t speak English…

*sigh* Normally I don’t mind travelling. I really don’t. It’s just that the international trips for the company tend to be at the most oddball times and causes me to go to bed very late or get up very early. Neither is very conducive to my peace of mind, as Misty will tell you I need my sleep. :-/ Oh, well… I plan on leaving work after lunch tomorrow so I can drive home and get packed before the flight. I’ll probably post from Villahermosa later this week to discuss how my trip is going. For now, though, I should get to bed. I’ll need my rest before tomorrow…