Our Long National Nightmare May Be Over

Well, actually, it isn't a national nightmare; it is more like my personal pain in the neck. After almost two months, three routers, a network expander, and having the cable company come out and move the modem to a different location in futile attempts to have Internet service that didn't just decide it wanted to stop working whenever it wanted, we've had a stable signal for over twenty-four hours. None of our computers have been dropped from the Internet and things are coasting along with a problem. Hopefully, this is the harbinger of better things (on that front).

The problem, for those who care--and if you don't you can skip down to the nest paragraph--appears to have been the modem. Since the beginning of this mess, I've always suspected that the modem was at fault, but because the provider can remotely check it, they never saw a problem. After we had the modem moved, I was able to connect my Xbox directly to the new wireless router and I found that I was still not always able to connect to my Xbox Live account. I used the Xbox troubleshooter and found that the Xbox (and by extension all of our computers) was unable to connect to the DNS server. Calling customer support, the person on the phone started walking me down the merry path of rebooting the modem and router; I just cut him off, told him I've done this far too many times to do it again, and that I shouldn't have to do reboot the modem every other day. He transferred me to the "local" office (good bye, India) where the person there started the ritual of telling me how to reboot the modem. I cut her off and plainly told her the problem and that I want a new modem. I installed it Tuesday and no problems. Here's hoping things stay this way and I can try posting more regularly.

As a gift for reading this after all this time, may I offer this site and/or this site as today's time wasters. Enjoy, but if you don't get enough work done today, I'm sorry.

The Forbes Fictional 15 - Forbes.com

Anyone who knows me knows Forbes isn't even on my list of magazines I would consider reading. However, you can't beat the conversation starter that this presents. For instance, I would have put Richie Rich in second place, moved Scrooge McDuck to third, while placing Scrooge'e nemesis, Flintheart Glomgold, in fourth. slid Daddy Warbucks in the fifth spot, removed Arthur from the list altogether, and then moved the rest down appropriately.

The Forbes Fictional 15 - Forbes.com

DC Comics Characters to be Featured On U.S. Stamps in 2006

Still having Internet connection problems, but I would be remiss if I didn't post a link to the story.

I don't talk enough about comic books here even though they are my first great obsession. If I ever get reliable Internet service again and I am doing something where I'll feel less guilty about avoiding work, I'll post my thoughts on which characters and the art of which artists should have been used.

Yeah, I Know What I Said

I didn't mean to not post, but life in the form of the patent bar exam got in the way as I began studying full blast for it almost right after my last post. For all that work, I didn't pass it, but the results weren't so bad as to be disheartening; a few more correct guesses and I'd have passed. It is disappointing, and I hate having to spend the money to register again, but I know now more what to expect, so I'm sure I'll pass next time. The next time I hope that my new brain doctor will actually be able to help me work better when I'm on the medicine. I don't care who you are, I just don't think anyone is going to pass a test that consists of 100 questions over six hours and it takes an hour and a half to answer the first six questions.

The other problem we've been having is that our wireless network that has become incredibly unstable over the last month or so. As long as we’ve had the network (“home”), there's been a competing network (“Olivetti”) that our wireless devices saw, but it was more a thing of interest, not a nuisance. At the start, the cable modem and wireless router has been in the basement and we had coverage throughout the house and into the backyard; within the last month, though, something has happened. You have to be almost directly above the router for a stable signal. If you take your computer into the back of the house, well, you can forget being able to do anything. If a wireless network is even detected, all too often the computer sees Olivetti only. If home is detected and an IP address it assigned (neither assured these days), the speed of the connection can jump all over the place and/or the computer will start looking for an IP address again and/or the connection will break.

I’ve put a lot of time and money into trying to correct this problem, but nothing has worked. Last week, support finally agreed that moving the cable modem might be the best bet, but when the cable guy came out the bastard wouldn’t move it. In fairness, it worked relatively fine again for a few days, which I used to actually look for work, but come Thanksgiving, the problem returned. The cable guy comes back on Wednesday and this time he either finds the problem or he moves the modem.

Updates as my connection permits.

Crony Jobs - Choice government careers for the taking. No experience necessary.

Recent graduate looking for work? Maybe you'll find something here that you might like.

Movies In Your Future

I love movie trailers. I know that that love comes from that time when there was no Internet or Entertainment Weekly, when the only news a person could get about movies was on the streets or movie trailers. Somewhere along the line, I'd come to believe that movie trailers were actually that, "trailers," something run after the movie to clear the theater between showings. While I've found nothing that disagrees with that believe I did find this little bit of expansion on the subject at Chasing the Frog, which, despite the name is a site devoted to "research[ing] the origins of some of the most popular (and not so popular) Hollywood films."

History of the Movie Trailer: The first movie preview played in 1912 at Rye Beach, New York. "One of the concessions hung up a white sheet and showed the serial The Adventures of Kathlyn. At the end of the reel Kathlyn was thrown in the lion's den. After this 'trailed' a piece of film asking Does she escape the lion's pit? See next week's thrilling chapter!" (Los Angeles Times, 1966).
The first studio to officially release movie trailers was Paramount in 1916, but initially only for their most anticipated films.

From Classic Movie Trailers at CTF. (That link will also allow you access to a number of movie trailers from 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Wizard of Oz.)

All that serves as introduction to a couple of previews for movies to be on the look out for. First, is Good Night, and Good Luck. I'm looking forward to this movie if only because it might introduce people under the age of forty (or those older who have no idea of where television news came from and how far it has fallen) to Edward R. Murrow. The only interaction I've ever had with a Murrow broadcast was third-hand: Seeing clips of "Harvest of Shame"; hearing about "Murrow's Boys"; and, to me most importantly, as Joseph Wershba wrote, "When this nation was drowning in cowardice and demagoguery, it was Murrow who hurled the spear at the terror," by showing the nation Joseph McCarthy tactics for the bullying they were.

The second trailer is for The Producers. I really enjoyed this show when I saw it on stage and I'm hoping that it transfers just as famously to film. Mel Brooks won the Oscar in 1968 for his screenplay for the original, non-musical version of The Producers and there would be some nice symmetry if the musical version became this generation's My Fair Lady with regards to Oscar wins. One interesting thing about the trailer for the musical version is that it feels a lot like the trailer for the original for the 1968 film (albeit with a little naughtier language). I don't know if that is good or bad, just interesting and I wonder if the trailer for the United States (the link is for the British trailer) will be the same.

Wal-Mart Turns in Student’s Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him | progresive.org

Maybe Prison Break is on to something with the Sevcret Service.

I'm not saying anything, but given a choice between freedom of expression and the right to bear arms, which do you think the framers would have put more stock in? Considering that they fought a revolution against an armed enemy, I would say freedom of expression, myself.

What was the last thing of any value to come out of the southeastern United States?

Wal-Mart Turns in Student’s Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him | progresive.org