Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Old Dreams Do Not Die

At no point in my life did infomercials play a big part.  In fact, infomercials exist largely as punch lines.  Yet here I sit, only half embarrassed, watching an infomercial.  And of course, sharing my shame with you.

It was about 1973 when I started playing the guitar.  I don't remember what made me pick it up; just that it felt meant to be.  I used to win Best Student awards from my guitar teacher.  This fun lasted for a few years until money and interest in lessons ran out.

In about 1974/5, Frampton Comes Alive rocketed to the top of the charts.  It was the number one album (no album jokes today, thank you) that year and in the top twenty the next year.  Peter Frampton is a Certified Guitar God<tm>, albeit an underappreciated one.  He became one of my heroes in middle school.  As it turned out, I had a black Les Paul (copy) and convinced my parents to get me a talkbox, so I could do `Show Me the Way' and `Do You Feel Like We Do'.  I even had the guitar routed for a third pickup, which set me off on a wiring and modifying spree that has not stopped to this day.

Depending on your age (and interests), you will remember Peter Frampton as a rock icon with long, flowing hair or a short, bald British dude.  Either Frampton is a treat for the ears.   Like Jeff Beck, he has only improved with age.  He's a consummate showman, still recording and touring.  Now you can see him up close, as opposed to humongous stadiums where you'll get deaf and sunburned.

In school I got to perform here and there.  Sometimes people would call me Peter to razz me.  No one had ever seen a talkbox before.  Of course they had other interesting names for me, but I shan't repeat them here.

But dammit, there was only one path for me:  rock stardom.

I still have my Frampton vinyl, as well as the results of an unhealthy obsession with Bachman Turner Overdrive.  Then it was off to Hendrix, who I chose to listen to for a very deep, spiritual reason: he was left-handed too.  Ok, plus people told me he was really great.

Thirty-some years later, I'm still listening to my favorites.  I have a decent job in network security, a wife, and a dog called Marshall, just like the name on the wall of white or black amps Frampton and most others still use.  Life has changed.

And I still wanna be a rock star.

Last weekend I played at a large neighborhood pig roast, with over three hundred fifty people in attendance.  At times I kinda felt rock star-ish.  Still working for the dream, even for three people in a stinky, dingy little bar.

WELL?

Yeah, so what about that stupid infomercial?

I needed something from the universe today.  Things haven't been especially good lately but perhaps the universe threw me one.  I must have channel surfed in the wrong direction and found myself watching the end jam of Lynyrd Skynyrd doing Freebird.  And it was the very popular version of Skynyrd, placing this concert footage around 1977(!)

And faster than you can say DEBT LIMIT, the footage is over and the two alleged hosts are talking about the newly released footage from the Day on the Green 1977 Concert, featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd and Peter Frampton.  It came out of Wolfgang's Vault and was only being sold with a donation to public television.

Wolfgang's Vault was property of Bill Graham, legendary concert promoter.  Head on over to sample the endless catalog of music Bill collected over the years.

I saw that very tour when it stopped in Philthydelphia.  It was at the now extinct Veteran's Stadium, our incredibly large outdoor venue  [I truly admire Kurt Vonnegut and feel this would be a great spot for his time-hopping antics] .  Shortly after the tour stopped in Philly, Lynyrd Skynyrd stopped, period, in a tragic plane crash.  They went through guitarists like Spinal Tap went through drummers.

I saw Frampton on most tours during that era.  I even took my mom, who declared that Peter Frampton could sing for her any time he wanted.  I shall relate this to him, should we ever meet.

The near nostalgia caused by the clips I saw from this concert was wild.  I remember being in the extremely large sea of people, jogging my way toward the stage, still smelling of sun tan lotion (and sweat).

Frampton is a master showman.  The way he stood up in that stadium and Directed Traffic was a sight to behold.  It was apparent he was at the peak of stardom and really jazzed about it.  The interaction with the audience was stellar.  He jumped all over the place, changed lyrics to suit the situation, played drums for a bit (he does play drums), and used the talkbox to great effect (bad pun, lefty).  On keys was Bob Mayo, who went on to play with Robert Plant, among others, and died way too early.  ["Bob Mayo on keyboards, Bob Mayo"]

Looking out over the audience was also an experience.  I saw myself back in the audience, with all those wild 70's fashions.  And more importantly, women with bouncing boobies and halter tops.

And way down inside, I still see myself onstage, in front of tens of thousands of people.

I have heard it said that you only fail when you stop trying.

Monday, June 27, 2011

There's a Theme Here, but I Don't Know What it is...

Iran to Blast Monkey Into Space

No comment from Ahmedinijad yet...

__________

Michelle Bachmann mixes up John Wayne and serial killer John Wayne Gacy

The republicans have a really interesting strategy going this time: two hot women with severe mental deficiencies. But in the `even a broken clock is right twice a day' department, Bachmann stated that we cannot afford another Obama term.  Ok, I'll agree there.

__________

The Supreme Court shot down California's violent video game ban as unconstitutional.  Scalia stated, "Even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply."

Way to go, Supremes!  Of course one wonders about all the other decisions made for the children, not to mention the constitutionality of the FCC itself.....

__________

TSA orders woman, 95, to remove adult diaper during 45-minute search...

Apparently the TSA has borrowed the republicans' image consultants.

__________

Woman Arrested After Allegedly Spraying Deputies With Breast Milk...

Do you think she has a laser sight on those things?  Do they require a permit?  Talk about .38 specials!

__________

The World Court has ordered that Gadhafi be arrested.   They neglected to mention if this is before or after we get done bombing him...

__________

In honor of New York's decision to allow gay marriage (why shouldn't they be as miserable as the rest of us?), a study appearing in the journal Psychological Science shows that the most accurate gay-dar belongs to ovulating women.

Yes, you read that right.  Now as far as regular old biology and reproduction go, I have no trouble understanding why this might be important.  I just don't understand how it is possible.  Especially as the study had the ovulating women looking at pictures and coming to a decision.  Apparently the closer they get to peak ovulation, the more accurate they are.

Of course the more conspiratorial among us might make something of the fact that this study came from Toronto.  Toronto, as we know, is right next to Quebec.  In Quebec, French is the official language.

Draw your own tenuous conclusions.

Friday, June 24, 2011

HTC Sensation 4G Early Review

My employer (the Twilight Zone<tm>) made the decision to go from expensive and reliable (Verizon) to less expensive (T-Mobile).  This has caused some rumbling, as T-Mobile doesn't have the best reputation for coverage.  It will likely cause a lot more rumbling.

Some of the folks in my department went by a recommendation and opted for the HTG Sensation. 

I come from a different cell phone point-of-view.  My most recent phones were a Treo 650, Treo 700, and an original Droid.  I still fondly remember my Treos - they simply did what I wanted to, worked, and didn't give me a lot of grief.  I have little to no use for The Cloud, preferring instead to sync locally.  It's a privacy and security issue, which means it's pretty silly to use a Google (Android) phone, but here we are.  They're still the best phones for my money and purposes.

My Droid, like the phones before it, was getting long in the tooth and I was looking for a larger screen and faster processor.  Both criteria were met with the Sensation.

The screen appears to be one of the biggest and clearest available.  The default clock is so large, blind people and Space Station residents can read it.  The performance is beyond snappy, leaving the Droid in the dust (as well as the Samsung Galaxy).  It's even a hair faster (subjectively) than the Xoom I used for a while.

The phone isn't has heavy as the Droid.  I don't really care about weight so this is for reference.  Although it's lighter, it feels every bit as sturdy, although the rep cautioned me against driving nails with it (he also didn't know what ROOTING is, so I'm taking his advice with a grain of salt).  It fits nicely in the vertical pouch I used for the Droid, saving a few bucks.

Thus far there have been no coverage issues.  4G is very nice, where available.  The phone has wireless and wired tethering available, which is good, as the company paid for it.  The upgrade from the Droid was seemless, even though I'm not fond of storing data in The Cloud.

I have no serious gripes (yet, but it's early).  The volume available from the internal speaker isn't as loud as the Droid, which I liked.   Charging through a usb port took forever (the phone has a micro-usb connector).

Trying to use my own ringtones was a hemorrhoid.  I located where the ringtones were in the phone's directory hierarchy and attempted to copy mine there, which failed.  That aside, mine became available shortly after.  No idea how to make my notification tones work instead of the horrid existing ones but all things in time.

A token complaint is that I can't stand moving things into a circle to operate or answer the phone.  I will live.  A slightly more serious complaint is that I saw email sync even though I had all sync turned off.  This might be a result of some security software we use at work but I'm not sure.


A STRANGE KIND WORD

Just for fun I tried out Slacker Radio.  I have had really poor luck with these kinds of services, where I select one or two artists I like and allow the service to recommend more.  How anybody gets from Jeff Beck to Joe Jackson, I'll never know (and I don't want to know).

So I typed in Jeff Beck and got a lot of suggestions, number one being Jeff Beck Radio.  As big a shock as that was, the next few artists out of the box were Gregg Allman, Little Feat, and Joe Walsh.  Boy, the quality of the algorithms must have gotten much better - I'm liking this.

THE ROOT ISSUE

I rooted my Droid and never looked back.  One of the happiest days with that phone was removing Facebook, Twitter, and the other detritus that Verizon shipped with it.  T-Mobile shipped its own stuff with the Sensation but none of it is a deal-breaker (nor is it removable without root).

Since I've had the phone for less than twenty-four hours at this point, I'll leave rooting for further consideration.

DON'T TRACK ME, BRO

I try to minimize my visibility.  To their credit, HTC or T-Mobile put the tracking screen up front in the setup.  You might not call it the tracking screen but I do - the GPS and location services.  OFF, I say!

All in all, I like this phone.  I'm hoping for good clean fun until the next phone arrives.  Now if I could only remember which one that is and when...

[stay tuned for the Samsung Galaxy review]

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Positing on Pig Parties and Pravinder Plant

It's not often you see what I saw last night.

T'was the week before Pig Roast, meaning that it was the band's last practice before said pig roast.  For reasons beyond me, we must practice constantly.  I am not one to use age as a bashing point, so I categorically refuse to posit that if we don't play every week, the band is so old they forget all the songs.  No, that cannot possibly be it.

So my wife dragged me to practice, which seemed rather more crowded than normal.  I should explain at this point that, among the other interesting circumstances surrounding this outfit, the band tends to take on personnel somewhat more frequently than I would prefer.  One day it's a neighbor, the next it's a wife, so one never knows how many people will actually be at practice, no less how many non-members will be playing with us that evening.

Two weeks back, they informed me we had to stop to pick up Bill, who was going to play percussion.  I don't know any Bill, nor do I know many percussionists, especially of the variety that were going to perform with my band, so it came as a bit of a surprise.  I kept my glee in check and managed not to ask if he was jamming that night, performing a song at the pig roast, or joining the band on a full-time basis.  Since my input was not sought, I figured I'd sit back and pretend to enjoy the ride.

Bill, as it turned out, is a pretty nice dude, not to mention a kick-ass percussionist.  I said it was nice to meet him and he told me he remembered me from last year's pig gig.  Well, at least that made one of us.  I'd have sworn I never saw him before in my life, but then again, I don't pay close attention to many things I should.

At this point, I still don't know how long Bill's with us, but it hasn't occurred to me to complain.  Yet.

For some reason known only to the Flying Spaghetti Monster Himself, everyone who was supposed to show up to practice did.  This in itself is a minor miracle.  Trying to get a bunch of fifty-somethings with Real Jobs<tm> in one room is only slightly less difficult than balancing the national budget (but still more likely to happen).

Practice went mostly as practices go: we played, I bitched about having to practice and rolled my eyes when someone suggested repeating something.  I have absolutely no tolerance for repetition and precious little for practicing.  The band says it's because I'm a better musician.  I think it's because they're too lazy to learn the songs right.  I will not go much farther, as they recently discovered this blog's URL :)

When we were done, we started messing about with Led Zeppelin tunes, to the partial delight of all assembled.  Our keyboardist lunged for the mic and let it be known that he wanted to sing some Zep so we told him to go for it.

If we weren't making enough noise to move the foundation of the house, you could have heard a pin drop.  This guy absolutely nailed it.  He nailed the tone, texture, and wailing of Robert Plant, in a way Robert Plant can't anymore.

The assembled masses and spouses were dumbfounded and, along with the musicians, were evenly divided between tears rolling down their faces and spasms of laughter (not to mention something else that looked a lot like gas).

What I have neglected to mention is that our keyboardist usually sits there behind his keyboards and manages to largely look hypnotized (which is a polite way of saying asleep).  At this point, he was moving around like 70's era Percy Plant and singing.   The other thing I haven't mentioned is that the fellow is a six foot tall (non-American) Indian.

How many six foot tall Indian dudes have you seen?
How many six foot tall Indian dudes have you seen playing keyboards?
How many six foot tall Indian dudes have you seen doing frightening impersonations of Robert Plant?

The bassist was the first to see the light, declaring that we needed to shift our focus and do a Bollywood Zeppelin show.

I suggested a blonde curly wig and half-shirt.

My wife is still shaking her head, speechless, but determined to keep calling him Robert.

And the pig roast (this Saturday) will have no idea what hit them.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Thoughts for a Humid Monday

What happens when you give the government the power to take things?

You get situations like this, where the State, via the TSA, turns a profit on items not allowed on planes.  These items, as it were, are right next to items seized in drug raids.

That's what happens.


          

President Giveaway, true to his name, is giving away a billion in mortgage relief.   Funny, I didn't get extended jobless benefits or mortgage relief, even when the stock market ate most of my retirement money.  I also didn't get relief when the IRS screwed up and cost me ten grand.

Why are we bailing out, as opposed to bailing?

          

Let's take a moment, once again, to Celebrate Texas.  They are about to tell the federal government where to place their light bulb ban.  Remember - when we criminalize light bulbs, only criminals will have light bulbs.

          


Military developing spy drones 'size of insects and birds'...

But rest assured - they'll never be used for domestic spying.
Now stop that laughing.

          

I leave you tonight, with the words of my grade school health teacher, on the topic of what to do about crabs:

"You shave half of your testicles.  You set the other half on fire.  When the crabs flee to the non-burning side, you stab them."


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Why I Love Linux (and Hate Cats)

So I'm upgrading a laptop from Xubuntu 10.10 to 11.04 (oscillating ocelot).  All is going incredibly smoothly, which is pretty much what I have come to expect with this process.

All of the sudden I hear the sound of an OS upgrade crashing, which exactly matches the sound of a laptop physically crashing to the ground.  Apparently the cat wanted some attention.

I will not describe any of the sounds that followed other than to say the words kill and death kept appearing.  They were the closest sounds to family friendly that were produced.

The laptop was frozen and would not reboot under any circumstances, so I had no choice but to power it down manually.  [BONUS TIP: ctl-alt-prtscn +R-E-I-S-U-B will generally get a computer rebooted].

Upon bootup, the update continued almost from where it got stuck, then went fine.
THIS is why I love linux.


My cat, not so much.


You have no doubt read here about my dear little Satan.  His previous act as FDU (Feline Desctruction Unit) was to turn on a circular faucet knob and flood the bathroom floor, ruining three layers of flooring, then seeping downstairs to ruin hundreds of old guitar magazines.

We suffered through thousands of dollars of vet bills for our diabetic darling.  We even managed to stop him from blowing up the entire house with the gas burners.  He has disembowled countless Christmas trees and ruined furniture.  He even trashed an entire vintage radio before I could restore it.

After my outburst (which you might have heard), my wife calculated that the best way to deal with all of my brilliant ideas concerning Satan would be to ignore me.  My wife is a very smart woman and this solution tends to work very well for her in general.

----------

In a recent security class, we were coming up with all sorts of interesting ways to protect things.  One wag suggested a security guard armed with rocket-propelled grenades and a dog with an AK-47.

The thought was most amusing but when it comes to the bottom line, they need to substitute a cat with an AK-47 instead.  The cat is always a better deterrent because one never knows what an evil kitty is going to do, AK-47 or not.


Do you feel lucky today, punk?

Monday, June 6, 2011

The Death of Doctor Death [and stuff]

Rest in peace, Doctor Jack Kevorkian.  Dr. K (83) died after throwing an embolism.  This was also stated as natural causes, depending on which article you read.

I believe Dr Jack is a national (world?) hero and should be honored for his actions and the courage of his convictions.  The notion that any government can hold itself above a person's sovereignty is ludicrous.

-----------------------------

The Richmond Federal Reserve building is flying a gay rights rainbow flag.  Good for them.  The real fun here is the reaction from some of the anachronisms.  Republican Robert Marshall says the homosexual behavior “celebrated” by the bank “undermines the American economy.”

I think I speak for most of America when I say "Huh?"

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Was Bin Laden deprived of sitting with Allah and seventy two virgins because the bullet that killed him was coated with pig-fat gun oil?  Yes, says Silver Bullet Gun Oil.

At this point I'm wondering what's sillier: believing in an afterlife with seventy two virgins or believing one will be denied said afterlife because of pork?

-----------------------------

Rabid beavers are apparently on the loose in Philly.  Three people have been bitten by at least one beaver which tested positive for rabies.

Speaking of Philly, people were shocked to discover a dog hung from a tree.  The details are disgusting and it made news all over the place.  Just today it was announced the animal was not a dog - it was a beaver.  Apparently Philthydelphians are having a difficult time telling the difference.

Rabid beavers might be the only sane explanation for the Philly Police arresting a man for carrying a gun.  The only problem here is that Pennsylvania is an open-carry state.  This means you can legally carry a firearm, so long as it's visible.  You need a permit to conceal a firearm.

Great job, police; arresting a man exercising his legal rights.

District Attorney (and part-time fish-fondler) Seth Williams also chose to play ignorant (going with his strengths?).  When Williams finally realized there was no crime here, he chose instead to charge the man with nuisance crimes.

It's astounding to me that ignorance of the law is no excuse, unless of course you are a law enforcement officer.

--------------------------------------

President Giveaway's latest attempt to (further) befuddle the citizenry turns out to be a Golf Summit.  Previously the president held a Beer Summit.  I figure that since he has managed to accomplish precious little, why not make the summits a bit more interesting.  How about Stripper Summit?  Chocolate Summit.  Ice Cream Summit.  Guitar Summit.

What kind of summit would you like to see?

Friday, June 3, 2011

Obligatory Yet Timely Mental Healthcare Rant [with update]

Mental healthcare has never been good in this country.  The HMOs effectively drove the final nail into its coffin.  There was a time when someone with mental issues would go to the Happy Place<tm> and stay there for a month or so, until some progress was made.  This was so long ago I only hear stories about it.

The reality of the situation is that mental healthcare has deteriorated into mere warehousing for people with ideas about hurting themselves or others.  And believe me when I tell you this: I have inadvertently become an expert in matters of mental healthcare.  Oddly enough this isn't even my field.  Although I find psychology fascinating, I come by this knowledge via my wife, whose main diagnosis is Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder).

One cannot get admitted to a mental facility unless there is suicidal ideation with a definite plan.  Otherwise the insurance will not pre-certify the inpatient stay (assuming, of course, there is insurance).  In the absence of insurance, the locality can provide coverage for the stay via Medicaid for the most part.

It's been about ten years since my wife saw the inside of a facility.   We both hoped that phase was long over.  Unfortunately it became necessary again recently.  The experience is even more alarming this time out.

Yes, there is bound to be change in ten years - one would hope for the better.  But not this time.  The intake was flawless, I have to give them that.    After that, things seemed to head downhill fairly rapidly, with small upward bumps.

There are a few places in the U.S. with Dissociative Disorders Units (DDUs) but none of them are closer than a few hours and insurance is a little picky about this.  As a result, it was back to the place from ten years ago.

As the HMOs were pounding the final nails into mental healthcare, the facilities became warehouses for the patients.  They were kept until they no longer felt like doing harm to themselves or others.  I am not making this up.  And heaven help the person who gets admitted on a Friday, as nothing happens on the weekends.  Nothing.

The intake people were nice enough to give me the name of the unit and information about visiting.  I felt good about this right up until I showed up for visiting hours.  Each of the signs for the unit said something different, some directly contradicting each other.  Every door I went through led me to a unit that did not have my wife.  One person told me she wasn't on the unit and turned away.  Fortunately a nice person made a call to find out where I had to go.

As it turned out, she wasn't on the unit I was told about.  At one point I swore that the next time I heard the word no, I would wind up being involuntarily committed.  Because of the incorrect unit and touring the entire campus, total visiting time was about thirty minutes.

While I do not expect every hospital to have a Dissociative Disorders Unit, my wife didn't expect to be the only clean person on a drug addiction unit.   Here's a fascinating little tidbit: drug and alcohol addiction seems to qualify for longer stays than most other disorders, mostly without insurance.  There does not appear to be a requirement for suicidal ideation either.

Here are a few small notes and issues:
  • patient hears staff mocking the contents of wallet and pocketbook
  • Most staff with MD after their name are arrogant, rude, and dismissive
  • Psychiatrist says the meds that have been working for years are wrong and some can't possibly work.  Tries to change to one med that causes zombification.
  • Psychiatrist, upon hearing diagnosis, asks if any of the alters are going to be a problem
  • personal effects dropped off at 8am didn't appear till dinner
  • some patients will wait days to see a social worker
  • family and friends are having difficulty locating the patients

Don't get me wrong - many of the people who are not doctors were quite polite, helpful, and informative.  I even observed a staff member talking to patients like actual humans.  But all of the above does not engender a warm feeling about this institution and the competence of its arrogant professionals.  Will they keep the majority of patients from committing harm?  Probably.  Will much more happen?  Probably not.

I will suggest one small improvement to the system: mandate weekend work, so the facility can do some good, as opposed to warehousing.

I truly hope to not type another word about this.



-----------------------------------------------------

But alas, here I am.




I went to visit my wife today.  We discovered the reason why she was on the detox ward: because the shrink refused to prescribe her pain meds for her and knew she was going to go into detox.

Apparently this crowd took the hypocritical oath instead.

For anyone keeping score, here we are:  a patient comes to the hospital, the shrink refuses to prescribe meds that the patient has taken for years and throws her into detox from her legitimately prescribed medication. At no point does anybody check with the prescribing physicians.


On top of this, the patient has gotten absolutely no help for her actual admitting issue.  Literally nothing.  She was more than welcome to go to the AA meetings, though.  The place was a warehouse.  There was no therapy or much of anything else happening.  The most exciting moments of the day for the patients were the smoke breaks.  Even the non-smokers went because it was something to do.  This was not a healthy or healing environment.

I checked in with my wife to make sure she was ok (she was).  We asked again for pain meds and got the same runaround.  We signed her out and I'm typing this from my favorite chair.  My wife, meanwhile, is resting and dealing with all the symptoms of detox caused by the hospital.

I am not a lawyer but this smells like the definition of malpractice to me.   Someone needs to put this hospital and its insecure shrinks in line for the good of the patients.  The constant refrain was that the unit staff was great but the doctors were from hell.

We have long semi-joked that hospitals are the greatest deterrents against going into the hospital.   This really drove the point home.