Death Through
I hear a pain grater than that of a man. I sense the pain. echoing through an industry. The desperation to sue your own customers signals the end of something. In stead of embracing the technology of the masses, the entertainment industry has chosen to swing a club at the swarm of ants devouring the beast.
Steam engines used to sell quite nicely. People used to flock to the local drug store for a root-beer float. Things change. I fear the loss of some industries only because whole economies depend on them. When the automobile sinks into oblivion a double digit percentage of the US economy will take the hit.

House of 1000 corpses
Lord have mercy this movie is bad. I'm watching it as I type. It just doesn't stop being bad either. It is so bad that I can't stop watching it. It's like a train wreck, and not in a good way. It's bad.

Bicycle accident
I forgot to mention that I was coming home from a friend's house this afternoon and the chain broke on my bike just as I was crossing Dairy Ashford (a busy street on Saturday afternoon). I'm poring on the coals and ker-snap. I almost racked myself (God loves me because the bar missed, but it still hurts a bit.) and was stuck out in the middle of the street with no chain, off balance, in that moment of shock when you are in pain, and traffic barring down on me. I managed not to get smooshed and staggered to the side of the road. I just stood there for a minute counting my blessings. I hadn't ridden that bike in a year. I had just checked the chain, tires, steering, breaks, and seat. You can't check a chain except by a stress test. I had an old bike a couple of years ago that failed under stress while crossing the road. The back wheel came off because the dopes at Academy hadn't tightened the bolts down enough. I was nearly killed. Thanks Mr. $5.25 an hour.

Boot to the head
Steel toe boots are a deadly weapon in Texas. So is a stick, a wrench, skates, baseball bat and a screwdriver. Any of these things might get you thrown in jail if you are carrying them in your pocket or in your car and the cop wants to make an issue of it. The funny thing is, you can carry a loaded shotgun in your car as long as it is in plain site. You cannot carry a baseball that has been modified in any way. I've heard that a notch or a crack is a good enough reason to get thrown in jail if the cops want to make an issue of it. Mace is not a weapon in Texas. Those telescoping night-sticks made of mettle require a permit to carry in Texas. There is a state law (in Texas) that governs the length of the blade of a knife that can be carried before it is considered a concealed weapon  Trouble is, every county has a different law on top of it. I carry a multi-tool that has a blade in it. A pistol may be carried on the body in plane site. The same trouble arise that every county or municipality has rules on top of it. Texas has a licensing system for the carry of concealed weapons now. Every building you enter these days say "no firearms aloud" on the door. Florida has had a concealed carry law for several years. The number of soles who have these permits who commit crimes is astronomically low. These people are law biding.

Stickers on apples
My work has apples for sale in the mornings. It's quite convenient. Every apple I touched this morning had a soft spot under the sticker. What is the deal? I suppose apples need to breath to repel whatever causes the brown spots. Maybe the gun that puts them on hits the apple skin too hard. Perhaps the person who puts the stickers on these particular apples has not been properly trained. "Don't hit the apples so damn hard when you put the stickers on." I picture a belt covered in apples running along and a modified jack-hammer placing the stickers gently one each apple as it passes. Perhaps a trained monkey with a machine-gun marking the apples as they drop into a truck..

Romantic
I am not a romantic person. I had a buddy of mine try to tell me that I am a closet romantic because I put poetry in my blog. I hate to correct him, but that is just a bunch of words. To be a romantic person takes far more than that. I can't even think of what it is that stirs a person's soul to the depth it takes to produce the art that some have inside them. Maybe some one can help me out. I'm not talking about lovy-dovy people who send flowers. I'm talking about the artist folk who are driven to produce magic.

No Call List
The US finally has a no call list. It is nation wide and violators will be prosecuted. They estimate that 60 million numbers will be on the list in a year. I bet 60 million numbers will be on the list as quickly as 60 million numbers can go on the list. Some weenie telemarketer was on the news whining about lost jobs. STARVE!!!! Flip burgers. Don't call me when I'm at home doing my thing you bastards!!!This is one industry that I want made as stigmatic as drug dealing. This no call list is not going far enough. I'm sure there are creative types out there who can come up with more interesting ways of punishing violators than I.
Sign up NOW!!! They welcome home numbers and mobile numbers. I can't wait until October 1st.

OK. I'm in a much better mood. Let's try this again.

Geek Speak
So, I'm redoing my RedHat server again. I enjoy torturing myself it seems. It was running fine, but I just wanted to move the hard drives around inside the box. Well, I'm installing RedHat 9 and I come across the part where it asks you for firewall information. I answer as best as I can and pick the programs that I want to let through the firewall. FTP, SSH, HTTP, and a couple of others. Anyway. Samba is not on the list. It turns out Samba is listed further down in the install. The install specifically asks “Allow SMB server?” SMB is Samba. This is an accepted fact everywhere. I think to myself “Yes, finally, they just added it to the server install.” To my horror, they were simply toying with me. That check box has basically nothing to do with the actual running of Samba. It is just there for show. I finish the install and configure Samba and FTP and SSH and HTTP blaw blaw blwa. Samba doesn't work. I try fixing the smb.conf file. I try turning the firewall off. I try modifying my Windows machine. I turn off the firewall. Now, this is important because I try this same thing like five times. Nothing works. I have an old HP 333 sitting next to me chugging away working like a champ on Samba (Mandrake 9). I use the smb.conf from the Mandrake machine on the RedHat machine, nothing. I search the web over and thought I fond true love, but nothing that did the trick for samba. I get FTP working I get SSH working. I get HTTP working all with and without the firewall. Then, the sixth or seventh time I try it, I turn off the firewall and “poof” Samba starts working.
I've tried reinstalling RedHat and I just can't tell where I was going wrong. Now, I can make Samba work and break by turning the firewall on and off. I've since heard that the firewall in RedHat sucks. I'm going to look for something after market. I would like to use pictures in my blog loaded from my own web server. That would be the bee's knees.

Wile E Coyote, Super Engineer
You have got to take a look at this article linked on Slashdot. I envision a big ACME label on the side of this thing. It would be cool if it works, but I'm not sure how, once this thing slingshots a couple of times, how it will “recharge” it's speed. That energy has to come from somewhere.

Id-Kelly
Terms
Picture a cupcake sitting on a table.
Id: The Id would say “Cupcake! cupcake! ya-ya-ya!!!!”
Ego: The Ego would not grab the cupcake because it is fattening.
Superego: The superego would not grab the cupcake because it is not mine.
Me
I have found that there are many bits making us up. Each of us have directions we head at different times of the day and different times of our lives. We have concuss thought and sub-concuss instinct. I don't think those are quite the right terms for what I'm about to explain. I'm not a psych major.
There is the normal “me” who walks around, writes programs, talks to people, fills out the tax forms. Then there is another part of me in there somewhere who comes out when he feels like it. I call him Id-kelly. I don't really control him. I'm sure every one who reads this has had times where they have to stop themselves from biting someone's head off. I have learned that I can get Id-kelly to do things he wants to do. He does things on his own too. Id-kelly is the one who hits when he is angry. He is the one who decides to yell, though the words come from me. He also saves me when I'm in danger, real danger. I've noticed he helps immensely when I need to get up in front of people to speak. I've been told, this is the one that's hard to believe, that Id-kelly is pretty good in bed.
Id-kelly is a necessary part of “me”. I would not be the same person without him. I need to hone Id-kelly. I need to learn to guide him to make “me” a better person.
Have you ever seen those cartoons where the kid is in school, the teacher tells him to deliver a piece of paper to the office and on the way he is swept away by his imagination? That is kind of how it is with Id-kelly. Sometimes I can call on him to help me out. Other times I don't realize he's been there until I come out of the daydream.
I've only told this stuff to one person before in my life. it feels weird to tell every one. Please don't think I'm nuts.

I'm in a crabby mood. You don't want to read what I want to write right now.

Concert
I went to Peter Gabriel last Thursday. He is getting old. It was a pretty tame crowd. He was preachy as usual. He had one song where he climbed in this big blown up hamster ball and tooled around the stage. Another song he road a segway. It worked for the song.
The opening band was from Uzbekistan. They (I'm not kidding) would sing this Arabic music in an Arabic Uzbekistanian language and then the lead singer would say in broken English “Every body”. It got quite a rise from the crowd.

Samba
I did everything right and Samba still doesn't work. I've followed all the instructions. I've done it before. It works fine in Mandrake, but RedHat refuses to work every other time. WTF. Stupid free software. (Not)

Noisy neighbors
I have a new neighbor. He is noisy too. You may remember a couple of blogs ago I griped about a noisy neighbor. Well, new neighbor. His noise is far different. The lady from several weeks ago played music 24x7. Thump thump thump from the apartment next door. Now, this new guy, only plays music loud for an our or two here and there. It is amazing how much difference that makes. I'll have to remember that when I want to play music loud.

Duck Tours
Who knew. Thanks Jen.

The Blank Page
If there were no deadlines nothing would ever be written. I'm watching a movie about a writer. First of all, I'm so damn sick of movies about movie makers that I could puke. The basic premiss of the movie is writer's block. This movie was written to break some one's writer's block. It is horrible. There is a sub-plot that goes into another writer's girlfriend being murdered in this writer's bed. blaw blaw. It should have never been put in front of a camera. ... a firing squad maybe. Well, look at that, it turns into a mass murderer flick. It doesn't help.
The one thing this show did have though was a sharp zoom onto a blank page in a typewriter. There is little that strikes fear in a creative person's heart than their chosen medium taunting them. I don't have to be a good writer to know the pain of staring at the blank page.

Past Blog
I wrote a little ditty about sitting on a deck and looking at the moon not too long ago. It's funny that the only response I got from that particular paragraph was a male buddy of mine who basically made fun of it. Thanks guy. Way to support the blog effort. The look on my face must have told him I was offended because he back-peddled. His attempt at recovery was “at least it was short”.

Outside
Late one Saturday morning when the air is still and thick sits a man without a cause. In the Summer the world glows with heat and humidity. The cement is too hot to walk on in bare feet. the pool is crowded with loud children. The neighbors are noisy too. The food is cheap and greasy. The water is pure clean and cool. A domestic cat wanders the yard in front of a car on the grass. What does she want from the grass. She looks like she is chasing a bug. Anything to stay off the cement.
It's funny how apartments are designed for cars to get around instead of people. Maybe we are ruled by machines already. Maybe it's the cats who are in charge. I have a large black cat who sleeps on my second floor balcony about twice a year. usually in the winter in the rain.

Writing
Blogger has been down several times lately when I attempt to log in. I get an error that says “Microsoft OLE/DB Error ...” which is typical of Microsoft OLE/DB. Some of my posts cover several days of thoughts.

Israel and Palestine (Warning, soapbox)
I'm getting tired of the news out of Israel. There has been another attack in Israel. I feel like saying “These people have been at each other's thoughts for thousands of years. Give them all baseball bats and give it all to the last guy standing.” It is funny that Israel did not exist until after World War II. You would think all this conflict would be older than that. Well, it is. Muslims and Jews have hated each other for as long as there have been Muslims and Jews. It's the same with Christians and Jews. It's the same with Christians and Muslims. Religion is not based on fact, it is based on faith, or what you believe. Hey, that's great. I don't have a problem with that. Without facts to back up what you believe, you cannot argue a point with some one else. The two of you would have to believe the exact same thing in order for your argument to apply. Else, you are arguing about two different things.
Now, Israel and the Palestinian Authority have agreed on a “road map” to peace. There are groups among the Palestinian people who will never accept Israel. Some of them will only accept an Islamic state for Palestine. The U. S. will not accept an Islamic state for Palestine (Afghanistan or Iraq for that matter) because Iran is an Islamic state. Look at all the trouble we had with them.
Who?
Palestinian Authority: I've found a couple of sites that say they are the official site.
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades:
Hamas, Islamic Jihad:
Terrorist Q&A:

Doors lawsuit
Things are a bit out of hand. There is a story here that says the parents of Jim Morrison are suing the current band (re-united). For God's sake. They are just grabbing at money.

Boring Work
I'm covering a co-worker's job for a couple of days while they are in Florida snorkeling (envy envy envy). I used to do this job several years ago (3) and I find now that I am absolutely lost. The work process has changed a bit and some of the rules have been modified. While I'm in the middle of dissecting a problem and tracking down possible answers, another request comes in, this time some very boring, but time consuming stuff. At first I feel a bit overwhelmed. After working on both for an hour or so, it is nice to bounce back and forth. The complicated task is broken up nicely by the mundane one.

No Phones for the Masses
One of the guys in Tpro came up with a great idea. Grunts will not have telephones. They will communicate inside the company via email and instant messaging. I'm thinking about it and it makes great loads of sense. I spend half my day sometimes on the phone fixing one problem. Meanwhile five things could have been done in the same amount of time. Of course there will be support and sales on the phone, but he grunt has no need. They are a distraction more than a help. I would like to get rid of mine right now. I know one friend of mine who would like to get rid of his home phone for the same reason.

WMD
Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq? They are in Iran and Syria and God knows where else. Sadam and his cronies said to other governments "Here is a big pile of expensive WMD material, hide my ass when the tanks come calling." The half-billion dollar gold bust recently tells me there are bunches of money clustered in Iraq and possibly other states these bad people still control. I'm listening to the BBC and they are all in a snit and want to investigate the claim about a 45 minute readiness of the WMD in Iraq before the war. Iraq had something like six months before the war that it was quite easy to tell that invasion was imminent. They had plenty of time to dismantle the system and sell it to the highest bidder, or for amnesty.

VNC
So, I got VNC working on most of my machines. VNC (Virtual Network Computing) allows a user to share a desktop with another computer. Most of the time you leave a service running in the background and tap into it when you need. That is how VNC helps IT people. At my day job we use Timbuktu, NetMeeting, Exceed (closest to VNC, it uses X), and Citrix (Citrix is pretty much the same thing as Microsoft Terminal Services) to control computers from one part of the network to another. I have managed to make VNC work through my firewall and the firewall of others. Some one once said the quickest way to make your network function is to get VNC up and running.
Microsoft touts having Desktop Sharing. They say one can use it to correct problems with other's computers without actually showing up and messing with it. The trouble is, as soon as Microsoft makes a standard people take advantage of it. The Desktop Sharing in XP has some problems in my experience. It connects through email and seems to work well on an internal network. The real challenge is surmounting firewalls and getting aunt Mini to follow a few simple instructions.
VNC Viewer is 228 K. The viewer works well on most any platform I've ever used it on. None of those other software packages support as many platforms as VNC. They all cost money. VNC is still free. I work for a big corporation. The mantality is “We can't use it if it doesn't cost us money.”

What People Say
The one's who deserve it never get it. This is true for good people and bad people it seems. Sure the world "never" doesn't really apply, but who's keeping count? I deserve more money for what I do. I will not get it until I move positions or change jobs. I deserve love and happiness, but I will never get them until I go out and get them. Some believe our sins are tallied against faith alone. Some believe deeds guide us to heaven or hell. Some say ritual guides our sole's path, Some believe everything is random or chaotic and no amount of trying will amount to a hill of beans. Some swear by fate or karma. I don't know. I'm going to relax, count to ten and hope it is all still here when I open my eyes.

Socializing With The Coworkers
This past Friday my office had a little happy hour at a local pub. I'm an extreme light-weight in the drinking department. I had about four beers over about three hours. at the pub. This is the level at which Kelly feels no pain. I was chuckling with the boss, and her boss, and one of the up-ity-ups at the company showed up. We played darts, shot pool, shot the breeze. Some of us grabbed a bite and some ice-cream after. All in all it was a blast.

Crazy Laws
There are laws on the books that treat T-shirts differently than other media like books or posters. It appears that the code for copying a DVD is illegal to sell in most any form except printed on a shirt. Take a look CopyLeft's site. I'm going to own this shirt at some point. CopyLeft is now named as a defendant in the case against the code monkeys who gave this gift to the world.

More Behind SCO Whining
SCO has some more to say about why they are making so many waves. There is an article on slasdot that say SCO is looking to be bought out by IBM, or maybe some one else. Here is another article on PBS.org that says it might be Microsoft pushing the buttons behind SCO. I think it is the buyout thing. That makes more sense because the SCO executives have to be making money off this somehow, or they wouldn't do it.

Personal Networking
Here is an article again on slashdot that touts solders will be networked in the future through their uniform. They will be connected to each other and to a centralized network. Slashdot suggests it is only about 5 years behind that for the rest of us. I say “Look in you pocket. Is there a mobile phone? You are networked.” The thing is, the companies that control the networks are just not taking full advantage of the mobile phone capabilities yet.