Publius & Co.

Thanks, Ted.

For providing a valuable public service at the top of your blog.*

*The visual hockey playoff update.

eBay

Everybody needs to take a look at this right fucking now.

I'm serious. I'm blogging this during non-lunch work hours, so don't let my indiscretion be in vain.

Thanks for sending me that way, sweetie.

Trackbacks explained

Well, it's like zeitzeuge explained. If someone references your post, you'll see a number "1" after the word "trackback" in your post.

The way they do it is a little funny. They have to click on the word "trackback" in your post; this will pop up a little box reading:

Trackback URL for this entry:
http://haloscan.com/tb/zenchick/108316195145473235

Now, when you look at that post, there should be a number "1" showing my trackback. If we get more people referencing that post, you'll get more numbers!

Neat, eh?

Give me chicken wings.

I can safely say it's been more than four months since I've had Hooter's chicken wings.

My doctor better appreciate that.

Can I ask you a question?

There are three girls at work? They all have the same name? And everything they say comes out sounding like a question?

Would you find that annoying, too?

Hello. My name is Inigo...oh, nevermind

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

Via the Quizmistress of Chaos.

Well, $#|+

I love lunch. I especially love the Indian lunches from Trader Joe's.

I don't remember exactly which one I brought in today, but I was looking forward to it (no, I can't look at the wrapper--it's in the trashcan, with my lunch all over it). The lunches are in plastic bowls, with handles, and they're covered with a glued-on piece of plastic. Peel back a corner, zap it in the microwave, unpeel, and eat.

I did exactly that, except for the "eat" part. I can safely testify the plastic seal had not been broken, but the handles looked a little funny. One of them had a nice semi-circular notch in one corner; the other one had the same thing, but the notch was still attached at each end. I could've broken it off.

Close inspection of the corners revealed familiar marks. Very familiar marks...I'm sure I've seen similar marks before...they looked like they had been made with chisels. Little, tiny chisels...over and over again...

I threw the lunch away. No, the seal had not been broken, but still. I don't mind my own rats chewing away at my dinnerware, but rats who don't have the common courtesy to at least introduce themselves before chewing on my dinnerware are a different story.

Roach coach, here I come!

I've started a meme!

I've always wanted to. When I saw Susie use the phrase "stupidity tax" and Ted refer to a "tax on stupid", it just made my heart go all a-flutter.

So the next time you see someone use the phrase "stupidity tax", remember they probably saw it first at Rocket Jones or Practical Penumbra 'cause Lord knows they probably don't read this tripe.

How to ruin your bike in one easy step.

Well, not exactly ruin--just enough so you can't go for a ride immediately. It all kinda started with this meme, you see.

I don't know who thought of it first, but I saw it for the first time over at Jim's place: Grab a book, turn to page 23, and tell us what the fifth sentence is. In my case, it was Snug up the nuts clockwise (opposite direction of fig. 2.5) with a wrench (usually 15mm) a little from each side until they are quite tight.

Poetry, eh? That's from Zinn & The Art of Road Bike Maintenance by Lennard Zinn, Velo Press, 2000--if I remember bibliography format correctly (that's still the book, btw, even if it's not correct).

Saturday the gf and I did a little over 12 miles at one of the local parks, and it was my best day on the bike this year. The roads at Seneca Creek State Park consist of rolling hills; a couple of them are on the steep side. The first time up the hills I was panting pretty hard after I finished, but the next three times up them...easy as pie. I think I figured out what was wrong with my technique.

Since the hills are actually pretty short (just steep) I'd stand on the pedals, but I was leaning too far over my front wheel. This put a lot of my weight on the front wheel, which meant I had to overcome 175 pounds of half-Mexican as well as gravity. Consequently, I was gearing down into my smallest gear (32 X 25) and still struggling to crest the hill. I didn't help myself any by going anaerobic.

Later on, I sat back in the saddle, which distributed my weight over both wheels more evenly, spun at a comfortable cadence in a gear higher than I had tried before (42X21 or 23) and topped the hill with not much more effort than I did while cruising on a flat, and without going anaerobic.

"Equal weight distribution" was my theory, anyway, and I hoped to try it out on Sunday, but I opened that stupid book instead.

It talked about changing the tension in your brake cables, with the tension adjustment wheel on the brake calipers. I walked over to where my bike was hanging on its rack, and I gave the adjustment wheel on the front brake a twist--it wasn't anything that turning the wheel in the opposite direction wouldn't cure--and watched my calipers move toward, then away from, the rim. On to the back...

...and the adjustment wheel was turned all the way to one direction. Hmmm. I spun the rear bicycle wheel, and discovered the brakes were rubbing against the rim.

The brakes worked fine on Saturday, so to say I was perplexed was putting it mildly. I grabbed the rear brake lever, and the tension was so tight I could hardly squeeze it. I couldn't twist the adjustment wheel at the caliper, either, for the tension.

I reached into my toolbag, pulled out my allen wrenches, and started twisting. The cable came loose, and I held the brakes closed with my left hand, pulled the cable taught with my right, then managed to tighten the bolt, all without using neither my third-hand nor fourth-hand brake tools.

Big mistake. The brake cable was so loose the brake lever wouldn't return when released...and it was then that I saw what the original problem was.

The rear brake cable on my bike goes underneath the top tube, which means when the bike is on the storage rack, the cable is under a little tension just from being pinched between the rack and the tube. However, on Sunday morning, I discovered the brake cable had slid to the side of the tube and stayed there when I put it on the storage rack, so it was under more tension than usual while being stored. Had I taken the bike off the rack and put it on the repair stand, I would've realized it immediately.

I haven't readjusted the brake cable yet--I took that as a sign from the gods that maybe I should go on a hike with the gf instead, and maybe do some cable maintenance later on in the week. I haven't lubed the cables since I bought the bike, and they're way overdue.

What's really funny (to me, anyway) was I've seen a problem like this before, but I'll tell you the story of "The Network That Went Down Between 9:00 and 9:15 Every Morning" some other time.

Meetings

As Mr. Company Computer Guy, I probably talk to everybody at work at least once each year. That's not relevent, but I thought I'd throw it in there for laughs.

Sometimes my users schedule minor service with me. I tried to do a monitor upgrade for one person yesterday at a certain time, because she was supposed to be in a meeting at that time. Thirty minutes before the meeting, I received an email from her: The meeting had been rescheduled for today; could I do it at 1 PM? I replied that was not a problem, and thanks for letting me know.

I rolled up to her office at 1:05, and she's still in there. "Aren't you gonna be late for your meeting?" I asked.

She looked at me, with a perplexed look on her face. "Who reschedules meetings for 4:30 on a Friday afternoon?" she asked me, no doubt rhetorically.

Funny thing is, is I know who. "Someone who wants to ram their ideas down your throat," I answered. She gave me a confused look, so I continued, "It cuts down on the bickering. Who's gonna argue when their only priority is to get out the door?"

Ah, these new kids! Four years of college, umpteen years of grad school, and no idea how the world really works.

STEAL THIS MEME

Jennifer stole it from John Hawkins, who may or may not have stolen it from someone else, or maybe he adapted it from something else, or it could be a tribute or something. Who really knows?

Anyway, The Top Ten MuNuvians I'd Like to Get Stuck on a Desert Island With. The girls:

The gf, because she's warm and cuddly and she'd kill me if I went to a desert island without her, especially if the desert island has a resort spa, which any desert island *I* get stuck on would have to have or I ain't getting stuck on it.
Susie because, as Jen says, she's Susie. I also think she'd be fun on Movie Trivia Night.
Jen because Trivial Pursuit Night would be fun when it's Jen against Everyone Else.
LeeAnn because she makes me laugh my face off.
Mookie because it's fun to tease sullen teens.

The guys:
Ted so he and I can cook together. The arguments alone should provide massive laughs for the other island-dwellers ("Excuse me, there *is* such a thing as too much garlic!").
Pixy Misa because he'd be the Professor to Susie's Mary Ann.
Mr. Mouse because you can't have too many rodents.
Simon because I suspect he's very polite, and he probably has a funny accent to boot.
Jim because he's funnier than cat piss (but not as funny as LeeAnn).

I'd also have to include a couple of non-MuNu's:
liz from Breakfast of Losers and Eric from Off Wing Opinion for more hockey talk. Also, liz is a fellow rat-person, and that counts for a *lot* in my book.

UPDATE: I realized, if I count myself, the guys would outnumber the girls, and that ain't fair. That means I can include MuNuvian blogdaughter Heather in case there was any heavy lifting involved.

Rat Cam!

For those of you who need a rat fix every now and then, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry has a Rat Cam. Damn shame they're on Pacific Time.

Easter Parades

The gf and I used to participate in Tanqueray's American AIDS Rides, before they were defunct.

I Rode the first two DC Rides, then Crewed the next three or four (I also Crewed one Boston-NY Ride, and did closing ceremonies for one or two of those); Nic worked closing ceremonies for the first DC Ride, Rode the second, then Crewed along with me (we also Crewed some of the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Days, and did closing ceremonies for the forgotten American Lung Association Big Ride) (These are all Pallotta Teamworks events I'm talking about, BTW. I probably won't ever do a blog post on the controversies surrounding Pallotta Teamworks, except to say I think they were good ideas whose execution sometimes left something to be desired, and I'm proud to have participated in them.) I think we both did 11 or 12 Pallotta events total. We met a lot of nice people doing those things...

The AIDS Rides were my favorite. Lots of bikes, lots of beginners, and I loved working with the beginners during the early training rides. Even when I planned to Crew a certain Ride, Nic and I frequently worked with the Training Commitee, leading beginner rides early on, and doing road support for advanced rides, later in the year.

During the second Ride, I started a kind of tradition. I had signed up to sweep a training ride (that is, I'd be the last Rider in, making sure everyone got home OK and helping out folks who had problems, like flat tires) that was taking place on Easter Sunday. Remembering an interview with Jacqui Phelan, where she talked about stuffing rabbit ears into her helmet for an Easter Sunday mountain bike race, I decided to decorate my helmet with bunny ears.

I bought a cute little stuffed rabbit and cut off the ears (please ignore any comments by the gf claiming I enjoyed that part), then bent some clothes hangers and attached the ears to them. I taped the coat hangers onto my helmet, and the ears stuck up beautifully. It was great.

The ears were a huge success at the pre-ride meeting; they made it easy for the Ride Lead to point me out. Turns out they would also have a practical value...

Barely a mile into the ride, I saw one of my riders on the side of the path (it was along the Georgetown waterfront at that point) with a mechanical problem. I don't remember the exact problem, but he was done for the day. I did try for ten or fifteen minutes to correct the problem but...but. He had no choice but to push his bike back to his car, and I had to catch up to my ride.

I headed up the Capital Crescent trail, in my top gear, passing people left and right. "On your left! On your left!" I cried, then I noticed something and I slowed down.

Little children were pointing at me and laughing. Adults would see me, smile, then point me out to their children, who would laugh and yell out, "The Easter bunny!" The ears were a big hit with everyone, and I wished I had had some candy to pass out.

My ride had stopped at a rest point, and as I approached them I picked up the pace again. "Bunny ears! We have bunny ears!" the ride lead cried out, and everyone clapped. They could see my ears a mile down the road, the lead explained. Heh.

Later on, on a non-paved section of the trail (it connected Capital Crescent to Rock Creek Park), I was riding next to the lead, talking about something, when someone pulled up to my side. "So," he asked, "do those ears help you hear better?"

"What?" I asked.

"Do the ears help you hear better?" he repeated.

"Come again?"

"DO THE EARS HELP..." and I turned to the lead and said, "He'll figure it out sooner or later," and me and the lead had a good laugh at that guy's expense. I'll tell you about the Tour Mobile on Independence Avenue some other time.

Two weeks later, I was at Dupont Circle, sweeping another ride, bunny ears still firmly attached to my helmet, when some Grinch walked by and sneered, "Easter is over!"

Sometimes I'm really proud of how fast I can think. "It's Russian Orthodox Easter," I replied.

"Oh, sorry," apologized Mr. Grouchy Pants, and my friends laughed at the poor ignorant slob who didn't call my bluff. I enjoyed my second Easter Parade that day, too.

We had two more Easter Parade training rides in subsequent years, but as we stopped doing the Ride...well, there was no reason to decorate my helmet anymore. I did ride last Saturday--my thirteen mile ride at Rock Creek Park. I had planned to do more, but it was a little chilly, so I cut my ride short.

On Easter Sunday I thought about the Easter Parades we used to have. I don't think there'll be any more.

M Street.

I've seen a couple of strange things on M Street in the six or seven years I've been working here. PeTA protesters, film crews, demolition explosions (I've *felt* those, too!), Segways, as well as the usual weird stuff--mostly tourists wearing weird clothing. I'd half expect to see the Amphicar on M St. sometime soon.

Yesterday was one of the best. A guy in the street, heading the wrong way on M St. (it's one way, east to west), holding an umbrella.

Oh, and he was on a unicycle.

UPDATE to add: I forgot to mention the guy riding a pennyfarthing, in full period costume. At least he was heading in the right direction.

Stupid User Tricks--The Stupidity Tax

When I was a field tech, I always called up my customer to try to get a better grasp on what their problem was. The Help Desk, you see, would take the call, then order parts based on the customer's description of the problem. Problem was, was that sometimes the Help Desk didn't ask the customer the right questions. My phone calls tried to get a better grasp of the problem, and every now and then I'd recognize the fix might be pretty easy--sometimes I could talk the customer thru it over the phone.

One day, I had a call from a customer for a LaserJet network printer--a 5Si. The part given was a main motor assembly, a two to three hour job, if I was lucky. But the problem description sounded vaguely familiar, and a glance thru a 5Si user manual told me it might be the printer settings. So I contacted the customer, and asked them for a few more details of the problem. His answers convinced me the problem was an easy one that I could walk him thru, so I asked him if he'd mind doing a couple of things for me, explaining, "My goal is to try to get you up and running in the next few minutes, instead of a couple of hours from now."

Most folks find that a reasonable question and explanation, especially when they're paying time and travel for an out-of-warranty service call. Problem was, he never heard that part, cutting me off with a, "We're paying you to come down here and fix this," somewhere between my, "Sir," and, "ask," in the sentence, "Sir, could I ask you to try something?"

So, that afternoon I walked into his building, to an, "About time you got here. Let me show you the problem," and he walked to a computer and tried to print.

"Sir, do you have the manual somewhere...oh, here it is, right next to the printer," and I picked up the manual, flipped to a page, and started hitting buttons on the control panel. I think I hit four different buttons a grand total of ten times, before I turned to him and asked, "Could you try to print that document, please?"

It printed beautifully.

Before that day, I would have felt bad about charging the guy $50 travel, and $125/hour labor with a two hour minimum for a simple problem like that, but I remembered his attitude that morning, and I asked him to sign the work order. He had no choice, obviously, since we already had a PO number and I was signed in at his guard desk.

As I walked out of his building, I realized he was paying a Stupidity Tax.

My sympathies to Weird Al

"Weird Al" Yankovic's parents, Nick and Mary Yankovic, were found dead in their San Diego home on Friday, apparently the victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. I'd like to extend my condolences to the friends and family of the Yankovic's on this very sad occasion.

Random stuff

First of all, the gf is now a Munuvian! Yay! Go visit her at the new Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax.

There was another fire on the Metro this chilly & rainy morning. Fortunately, it was at 5AM, so I heard about it on the morning news, so I could plan ahead to drive in to work. Of course, so did a whole bunch of other people...

I'm really concerned for the future of Metro. While the system itself is, for the most part, clean (and kept clean), attractive, and relatively efficient, there were some design flaws inherent in the system that no one thought to comment on, back when it was designed. Or someone did, but they were told, "Ahhh, we'll worry about it in twenty-five or thirty years...plenty of time to figure out a solution..."

The most obvious problem a casual visitor might notice is that most of the escalators are exposed to the elements. This means that, twenty-five or thirty years after first being built, they're starting to break down. The Dupont Circle South exit has three escalators; at any given time we're fortunate to have two of them running. Frequently, only one is running, and sometimes the station managers make that the one going down. It's about 120 steps to the surface when they're not running, and there aren't a lot of people who can make that stretch without stopping several times along the way.

Second is that part of my line, the Red Line, crosses under Rock Creek. It's called a creek for a reason: It's filled with water. Some of this water percolates down through the layers of sediment and rock and makes its way into the system because the designers didn't waterproof the tunnels. According to a Washington Post article (I read it quite awhile ago, so I cannot provide a link. Please just take my word for it.), the builders (or architects, or engineers--whoever made the decision) felt the concrete used was so dense water would not penetrate it. I can only suspect either they didn't suspect settling, uneven pressures, and plain ol' aging might cause a crack or two, or they were complete and utter idiots.

Guess what my suspicion is?

I've been in one station (Anacostia) where it looks as if someone stuck t-shirts on the walls to soak up some of the moisture, and at Dupont Circle, near the south exit escalators, a mop bucket has been stationed for months, catching a slow drip from the ceiling.

Anyway. I've now got a longer commute home, and I have to feed the meter every couple of hours today. Should be fun!

Not.

Boy, would Mr. Sampselle be surprised.

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Found on so many blogs I had to try it out myself.)

BTW, Mr. Sampselle was my H.S. junior year English teacher--quite possibly the best teacher I ever had. At the beginning of the year, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of how *not* to write. He was gracious enough to not identify me, though my incredibly red face might've given me away.

At the end of the year, he started reading one of my essays to the class as an example of a well-written essay. It would've been one of the high points of my H.S. life, if not for our shit-for-brains principal making a twenty-minute announcement (about nothing!) just as he started reading.

I hated our principal before that incident, and her announcement didn't change my feelings any. I still hate her. I'm pretty sure she was the county superintendent of schools a few years ago, probably because she sucked the blood from the neck of the county commisioner and turned him into a zombie.

Or something like that. Lord knows it couldn't have been because of her sparkling personality.

Computer Stupidity Monday

I admit it: I'm stealing this idea from Rob The Greatest Fucked in the History. I do hardware user support. It's a pretty easy job, truth be told, but it does make me wish people would take a test before turning on their computer. This first post will use his title (it's a tribute, not a theft); my subsequent ones will be headed Stupid User Tricks. Anyway, on to my first Stupid User Trick:

I've just returned from a luser who complained her computer wasn't turning on. She was in another building, so I had to walk over there. It's usually a fun walk, but today...it's freaking cold for April, and there are wind gusts of 20+ mph.

So, I get to the luser, and she explained her computer wasn't powering on. Sometimes they had that problem; other times it would turn itself off while she was working. My first thought was virus, but you have to check the stupid stuff first.

Power cord was secure in the back of the CPU. The cord went down into a crack formed by two back-to-back tables (project room), pinched between the two of them. I pulled the cord out slightly, put a piece of tape on it, and pushed it back down between the tables. Traced the cable...and the plug wasn't in the power strip all the way. Pushed it in, turned the computer on, and the luser, amazed, exclaimed, "How'd you do that?" I plugged it in, I explained. "We checked that!" she claimed, and I asked how. "Uhh, I don't know. (Some other male temp) is our computer whiz," and I left to her apologetic, "Sorry you had to come all the way over here."

I'm a nice guy; told her it was no problem and I got to burn off a calorie. Of course, now I'm posting it on the internet for all to see.

Heh.

23-45-9-2

Is the final record for the Caps for this 2003-2004 season, so says the Washington Capitals website this Monday morning. Only problem is, is that's 79 games. Even their own website stopped caring at the end, there.

The NHL site gets it right: 23-46-10-3. Now my problem is that I'm wide awake and it wasn't a dream.

At least it's baseball season. I was a pretty big Oriole's fan, but I stopped paying attention when Peter Angelos started channeling George Steinbrenner. This year, though, all the baseball pundits say the Birds won't embarass themselves. If yesterday is any indication, the pundits are right, as the Birds beat the Red Sox soundly, 7-2. I'd give a little recap, except I really don't recognize a name on the Birds roster except for Lopez, Palmiero, and Segui. I recognize the name Ramirez on the Sox roster, which should surprise no one (no relation, BTW).

So. One season ends, another one starts. It's an endless cycle, and for baseball fans everywhere, next year is now.

In memorium:

In celebration of baseball season:

Happy World Rat Day!

April 4 is when we celebrate World Rat Day! Yay!

Hug your rats. Hug someone else's rats! Get a rat of your own to hug!

Anyway, I had more ideas than that, but our internet connection went down, and it only came up in the last thirty minutes. Otherwise, you'd have links to tons of Rat Resources, pictures of the party (it was the gf who broke that vase. Seriously!), and some guest blogging by one of the rats.

Too bad y'all missed it.

Gateway Country: Bye-bye!

According to the AP, Gateway will close its retail stores. I feel pretty bad about this--I enjoyed going to our local Gateway Country store, and even thought about applying for a tech job there. I'm now glad I only thought about it.

One thing that makes me feel *really* bad is this: On Tuesday, Gateway announced it will move its headquarters north to Orange County, closer to home for many of the executives who joined the company from eMachines.

BIG mistake on Gateway's part. I once worked for a company that was HQ'd in Rockville, Maryland. The CEO resigned to start his own company; the new CEO didn't live in Rockville. He moved the company to Reston, VA--many, many miles away, but closer to his house.

Most of the rank-and-file lived closer to Rockville than to Reston. The experienced people got sick of the commute, and started leaving. Most of those people were in sales, and they took their customers with them.

The higher-end tech-support people found jobs with their customers, closer to home and at more pay. The customers we kept, we didn't keep long, because tech support went down the toilet.

And while all this was going on, the new CEO could look out of his office window and see his house. He *loved* his commute.

Jerk. The company went belly-up less than two years after it moved to Reston, Virginia, and it all started when the CEO wanted to shorten his commute.

UPDATE: The announcement of the move in Forbes. Sure, they talk about needing to grow, combining sales sites, and stuff, but the telling paragraph is, "'The key factor was proximity to Wayne and the senior management team,' (Gateway spokesman Bob) Sherbin said, noting that seven of Gateway's top 13 executives are from eMachines."

As with Gateway, we heard the stuff about needing room to grow, business is booming, and tax breaks in Virginia, but it was all smoke. The fact remains the CEO (whose name I can't even remember, such is my lack of respect for the man) didn't want to drive to Rockville, and that was the end of the company.

If I had stock in Gateway, I'd start trying to sell it.

Somebody call PeTA on me!

I don't have just rats, you know. Introducing Teddy the Guinea Pig (click for the large version):

Pellets? I don't need no steenkin' pellets!

Am I hot in here, or is it just you?

Put me in, coach! I'm ready to play!