Car troubles, and the more things change…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

Well, this should be interesting… I upgraded the main darquecathedral.org site from WordPress 1.5.2pl2 to WordPress 2.0.2. I’m not sold on the backend changes quite yet, but overall it seems to be working all right. Hopefully those of you viewing from home won’t be seeing anything majorly different about the site, though.

I do admit to some annoyance on another subject. I finally got ahold of the service department at the Saturn dealership this afternoon, and they told me that the valve body on my transmission had developed several internal pressure leaks causing the solenoids to warp, and that as a result it needed to be replaced. That’s going to set me back $1100. *sigh* Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. Also as a result, the car won’t be ready until 3 PM tomorrow, which will be a bit of a pain in the ass. I have stuff that needs doing at both my office and at the datacenter, and I’d just as soon get them fixed sooner rather than later. Oh, well… in the meantime I can still work from home.

On a different subject… I’ve been having a bit of difficulty with something my parents and friends have been telling me. Back when I was going to high school (something like 15 years ago), I passed the intersection of FM 2920 and Kuykendahl, and there was literally nothing there. Each corner was an empty field. Even when I was last at that intersection (something like 6-7 years ago), all that was there was a Shell at one corner. Now apparently one corner has a full Kroger center, another corner has a full Wal-Mart center, and there’s a Chili’s, a Philly Cheesesteak, and a Buffalo Wild Wings there. I’m going to have to go up there to try and reconcile this, because my brain is refusing to accept such a radical change. It’s not that I don’t believe it’s happened; Mom brought me wings from Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch today. It’s just that… I need to see it to accept it. I can’t decide whether it makes me feel outdated, nostalgic, or just plain old. (Also, it should be amusing seeing Merrie express shock that I didn’t know about any of this… when she recovers from her surgery, that is. Speaking of which, get well soon!)

Oh, well… I’m just going to go get a drink and then ponder going to bed. I’ve got a real fun day ahead of me tomorrow… heh.

This is not how I expected to spend my Tuesday.

D'Arque Bishop

Well, on one hand, I am working and have been somewhat productive this morning. On the other hand… I’m at home right now, working from the kitchen. As I was leaving work last night, my car’s transmission started seriously acting up, so rather than take the risk that it MIGHT get me home okay, I called AAA and had them tow it to the Saturn dealership. So, right now, I’m in the kitchen, logged into the corporate VPN, and have my office phone unconditionally forwarded to my cell phone. I’ve already taken care of a couple of support calls, but for the most part I would have rather been at the office.

I went and saw Delirium on Saturday, as I stated before. I rather enjoyed it, but my parents did a little less so. I think the problem was that Delirium was much more of a concert performance, with the dancers and acrobats being a bit less involved. I love the music in Cirque du Soleil shows, but for my parents it’s more about the on-stage performers. The opening act was a woman named Nitza, whose performance I really liked. Too bad she doesn’t appear to have any CDs for sale on Amazon or the iTunes Music Store… I also looked at getting the double CD set for Solarium and Delirium at the event, but they wanted $45 for it. I can get it for about $26 off Amazon. I’ll just have to remember to order it at some point.

I went out to dinner with Robin again on Sunday night… just dinner at Chili’s, but it was still nice to get out of the house and see her. We’re already making plans for doing something on Friday, but it really depends on whether there’s a movie she’s wanting to watch and whether we can get a table at the Cheesecake Factory in decent time to catch a movie. I’d rather go to Cheesecake Factory than see a movie if I’m forced into a choice, but that’s just me. At least at dinner we can talk. :-) Though, granted, while I’m partial to V for Vendetta and wouldn’t mind any other movie… I’m tempted to avoid Failure to Launch as I’ve already gotten shit from coworkers about it being similar to my living situation…

Oh, well. In the meantime, I should call Saturn and find out how my car is doing. Fun fun…

Another fine Saturday and all that…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, today has been slightly productive so far. Then again, I haven’t really been motivated to do much. About the biggest thing I’ve done this afternoon has been to migrate my gallery from Gallery 1 to Gallery 2. The main reason I hadn’t migrated before now was because I couldn’t find a theme that matched the color scheme of the main site, like Gallery 1 did. It never occurred to me that what I needed wasn’t a theme per se, but a color pack. Once I installed the color pack module, I found that it did indeed have a black color pack similar to what the black theme in Gallery 1 looked like. So, like I said, I migrated it over, and all should be good now.

Tonight should be an interesting night. My parents and I have tickets to see Cirque du Soleil’s Delirium down at the Toyota Center at 8 PM. This isn’t like previous Cirque du Soleil performances we’ve been to; this is much more of a concert performance. I’m quite looking forward to it, as I really enjoy the music at Cirque du Soleil shows. I have the soundtracks to O, Varekai, and Kà, and will very likely get the soundtrack to this show when it’s done. (I don’t have the soundtrack to Zumanity, but then I never did care for that show.) It’ll make a nice addition to my iTunes library… heh.

Actually, I do have a bit of an amusing story to tell relating to the site, though I will admit Dad will probably not find it so funny. :-) When I got home from meeting my friend Robin for drinks and dinner last night, I got online and found my father had left a comment on a previous entry asking when I had met Cirque du Soleil people. I had to explain to him this morning that what I was doing was reposting a Houston Chronicle story, and the fact that I had linked to the original story and italicized the stuff I was quoting from it should have clued him in. He also asked me when I got home last night if I had gone clothes shopping. I looked at him and said no… then asked him why he thought I was. His response? “You posted you were going to on your site.” I just looked at him strangely and said, “Uh, Dad, that post was from a week ago…”

Anyway, it’s time I got into some semblance of readiness for tonight, as we’ll be having dinner early. Granted, it’ll be fish and chips at home, but I probably won’t have much time afterwards for getting ready. I’ll post later tonight on what I thought of it. :-)

The physical fitness routines of Cirque du Soleil…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/3710530.html

Anyone who has witnessed a Cirque du Soleil performance has the visceral reaction of wanting to chuck it all and run away with the circus.

Problem is, less than one one-hundredth of the population is fit enough to do those death-defying aerial acts, precision acrobatics or contortionist moves that make up Cirque’s fabulous repertoire. You could run away, but you’d be selling drinks at the concession stand.

These people are world-class performers who have a billion times more flexibility, strength and grace than the rest of us mortals, and are capable of elegantly swinging from a trapeze, as in the show Saltimbanco or diving 60 feet above the ground into a little pool as they do in O.

So I was envisioning a nonstop buzz of performers hoisting weights, honing their splits and cardio-ing it up like nobody’s business as I headed for a meeting with some of the cast of the Cirque show Quidam.

It would take nothing less, I assumed, to maintain such phenomenal physiques and unique skills to nail those nightly gigs.

And then I met Jerome Le Baut.

The French former gymnast and acrobatic expert is one-half of the duo that performs Vis Versa, an astounding slo-mo piece in which one is often balancing the other in seemingly precarious positions — for example, he’s standing, she’s completely upside down, her shoulders resting on his.

I asked the dark-haired Le Baut, who’s 36 and extraordinarily lean, to tell me a little about his workout regime. He shrugged, admitted to some biking and also chasing his two young kids around, plus stretching and a little warm-up before performing.

No marathon Pilates sessions, no amazing feats of strength?

Nope. That and the show, he said, “are enough to keep me in shape.”

No one, in fact, is training for hours on end — not the guy who spins and twirls and does somersaults on the gigantic German wheel, not the woman who balances on her hands and twists her body into positions that would make you believe she doesn’t have a spine.

Hanging out here, it quickly became apparent that part of the performers’ challenge is saving enough energy for the show, which requires an enormous amount of physical activity and concentration.

…

Le Baut’s partner, 21-year-old Asa Kubiak has boot-camped it in Montreal, spending three months training for the Vis Versa number, increasing her upper body strength and honing her balance, agility and flexibility.

“Sometimes I felt like I was Rocky or something preparing for a competition,” she says, laughing. “I’d have a towel wrapped around my head to train my neck, and the coach would pull really hard.”

The result was “a total body makeover” that produced a more muscular physique. “I had no muscle mass before,” she said. (She is tall but thin, not what you’d expect someone to look like who’s able to support the weight of a grown man.) Now that her body’s in shape her workouts are not nearly as intense. Like others in the cast, the time she spends exercising ranges from zero to an hour or more, depending on what her body needs on a particular day.

Kubiak’s regimen consists of an assortment of disciplines. She picks and chooses from Pilates, stretching, ab work, yoga and cardio, which she’ll do on a stationary bike, treadmill or elliptical trainer. Strength training is done mostly with resistance and her own body weight.

“Every day I play on the Bosu ball,” she adds. “I’ll do handstands on it before the act. It’s a nice way to feel alignment.”

Some in-house exercise classes are taught by 33-year-old Philippa Hayball, who portrays a character and performs in a number called Aerial Hoops, twirling above the stage.

Hayball’s own workout incorporates Pilates, stretching, strength and balance, and core training, but little cardio: “During the show I run and run and run,” she says. “Especially if we do a 10-show week, that’s enough running for me.”

The other important element is rest. “I’m learning more about rest, actually,” Hayball said. “If you take a day off training and rejuvenate you come back stronger the next day.”

Ponderings on the midweek…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

First things first… while this Akismet plugin for fighting spam on the site has been exceptional for the most part, I have managed to find one unintended casualty. Apparently all of ACJ’s comments are being marked as spam. I happened to be browsing the list of blocked comments earlier tonight and came across a comment he made a few days ago. *grumblemutter* I suppose I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on it, or find a way to make sure ACJ isn’t blocked.

It appears I’ll be going to Buffalo again on Friday. This time I’ll have everything in hand that I’ll need for the trip, so I don’t expect to need to make another trip for a while. Maybe this time I’ll be able to get the net access working and be able to do some actual work from there. The only thing that bugs me about Buffalo trips is the drive, but the fact that I’ll have my iPod with me will make it quite a bit more bearable. I should see about getting more Doctor Who audio adventures; when I went to Los Angeles last week I entertained myself by listening to “Shada” on my iPod, and it was quite entertaining. It’s really too bad Big Finish doesn’t offer them on the iTunes Music Store, as I’d be more likely to buy them that way.

I’ve also been trying to be a bit more smart about my food intake, exercise, and all. Starting Monday I’ve been doing a five to ten minute workout every morning with a set of hand weights I have here. I’ve cut out all soda again (I’d been slipping, but nowhere NEAR as bad as I had been; maybe a soda at lunch), and have gone to two cups of coffee in the morning and water the rest of the day, with the exception of a Shiner Light in the evening. As for food… I’ve been trying to eat healthier. While my sandwiches for lunch Monday and Wednesday came with fries, I only ate a few of them (as in, five or less). On Tuesday, I had a light pasta salad instead of fries with my chicken sandwich. Then, when I get home, I have a light dinner. We’ll see how it turns out, but I would like to shed a few pounds before May, which is when I’ll be attending two big trade shows (OTC and E3, to be more precise).

In any event, tomorrow should be a somewhat quiet day, other than poker tomorrow night. Then on Saturday, I’ll be going to see Cirque du Soleil’s Delirium at the Toyota Center, which should be rather enjoyable. For now, sleep beckons…

And these parents represent everything wrong with parenting and the legal system today.

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Florida/floSTAT04030806.htm

BARTOW — The parents of a 13-year-old boy who was seriously injured when he fell from a roller coaster at Cypress Gardens last month sued the theme park for negligence.

Martin Llamas of Orlando fell 10 to 12 feet onto the grass from the Triple Hurricane roller coaster on Feb. 25. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said he had maneuvered out of the lap bar and was facing the cars behind him when he was thrown out of the coaster on a sharp turn.

But his parents, Publio Junco and Maria Cota, dispute witness accounts that their son was standing up in the car. They filed suit Friday, claiming Cypress Gardens failed to ensure the ride was safe, and failed to maintain and inspect it to prevent injury.

Cypress Gardens spokeswoman Lynn Wright said the park didn’t do anything wrong.

“We stand by the results of the completed investigations of state and local officials, which cleared the park of any negligence or error in this unfortunate accident,” Wright said.

An inspector with the Florida State Bureau of Fair Ride Inspection concluded there was no malfunction with the ride and the boy was properly restrained by the coaster’s lap restraint. The ride was reopened the day after the accident.

Llamas remains hospitalized in Tampa.

Sunday morning and all is well…

D'Arque Bishop

This is really turning out to be a slow weekend.

So far I really haven’t done anything of note. About the most important thing I’ve done has been to install OpenVPN on my mom’s laptop so that she can access the home network whenever she takes it out of the house. Then again, I could have done that a LONG time ago, except for the fact that as far as I know, yesterday was the first time she’s left the house with it. It’s a monster HP laptop with a 17″ screen; the damn thing is so big that the laptop keyboard actually has a numpad on it. She mainly got it as a desktop replacement, and has been using it as such. Oh, well… personally, if I want a laptop as a desktop replacement, I’ll get one with a 15″ or so screen and just get a docking station for it. :-)

Tonight probably isn’t going to be much better, either. I think the most I have planned is hitting the mall to do a little bit of clothes shopping (I need some more shirts for work) and then have dinner somewhere. I’ll probably do a bit of gaming as well; I keep meaning to finish Half-Life 2, and tonight should be a good night for that. Otherwise… meh. It’ll be a quiet night. That’s fine by me, really… after a week of having gone to Los Angeles followed by Buffalo (TX), I could use some quiet time.

Speaking of trips and whatnot, I’ve already gotten clearance to get time off for E3. This should be a very interesting show, with both Mortal Kombat: Armageddon coming out this year and Nintendo hopefully showing off the Revolution. Of course, I’ll likely be spending so much time working on MK: Armageddon coverage that I won’t get to see everything else that I’ll want to. Oh, well… such is the curse of coming in during an “on-year” for MK. (An “on-year” is what we call a year when Midway releases an MK tournament fighter. While last year was important because of Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, it wasn’t a tournament fighter and as a result didn’t get as much interest as other MK games.)

In any event, I suppose I should go off now and do something constructive. Fun fun…

My interview with Ed Boon…

D'Arque Bishop3 Comments

One of the things I got to do Tuesday night was interview Ed Boon, co-creator of Mortal Kombat and the project lead for Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Joe was good enough to tape it for us using my camcorder, and we went ahead and posted it this afternoon. If anyone would care to watch it or read the transcript, you can reach it at the following link. (Be warned, you’ll need to register with the site in order to download the videos.)

http://www.mortalkombatonline.com/content/News/read.cds?article=734

Unfortunately, we didn’t have much of a choice as to where we could film the interview, so there was a LOT of background noise. That and the fact that my camcorder doesn’t support external microphones made it very difficult to hear Ed during the interview. More to the point, I think the interview illustrates beautifully why I stay behind the cameras for the most part. I didn’t have time to think up questions beforehand; those who are familiar with me know I have a stutter, and it’s more pronounced when I’m on the spot and haven’t had time to think about what I’m going to say. As you can tell in the video, the stutter was rather pronounced. *sigh* I think I’m going to let Justin handle interviews from this point forward. It’s not so much that I’m being down on myself, but I just think it reflected poorly on the site’s professionalism.

Oh, well. I’ll stick to what I’m best at for the site. At least there I can feel good about what I do for the site. :-)

Yet another reason not to use Norton products…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/03/keylogger_utterance_spooks_nor.html

Symantec said Wednesday it plans to tweak the behavior of its Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall products so that they are no longer vulnerable to an annoying but otherwise harmless prank that “script kiddie” hackers have been using for the past week or so to knock users off online chat channels.

Last week, a hacker known as HM2K posted a note on his blog about a Norton security feature that could be abused on Internet relay chat (IRC) networks, simple, text-based communities that predate modern instant messaging systems. (Most IRC networks are used for the same purpose as regular instant-message networks like AOL Instant Messenger or MSN Messenger — to facilitate real-time online communication between two or more people at once. But virus and worm writers also use IRC to update and control their networks of infected computers.)

Turns out that if someone types “startkeylogger” or “stopkeylogger” in an IRC channel, anyone on the channel using the affected Norton products will be immediately kicked off without warning. These are commands typically issued by the Spybot worm, which spreads over IRC and peer-to-peer file-swapping networks, installing a program that records and transmits everything the victim types (known as a keylogger).

Though the author said he didn’t post the information so that people would abuse it, abuse it they did. It wasn’t long after his posting that you could see users dropping like flies from IRC channels in some of the larger communities like Efnet and Dalnet as pranksters began typing the command all over the place, in some cases repeatedly on the same channel. According to several posters on his blog, a number of IRC channels are now filtering out those phrases.

The funny thing is, it DOES work… I just nailed two people on #mortalkombat with that. And yes, I did warn people I was going to do so first… :-)