Saturday, September 30, 2006

Reasons

Reasons 1, 2, and 3 why I shouldn’t get a new laptop or any machine with a built-in iSight camera. And PhotoBooth, of course.

I’d never get anything done. I’d just sit there and play all day, littering the hard drive with images such the above and e-mailing them to everyone I know.

Friday, September 29, 2006

To Anyone Who Left Me a Voice Mail at Work

Between May 10 and earlier this afternoon. Sorry, I didn’t get it.

Yes, it’s true, not only do I steal other people’s food at work, but I also *never* check my voice mail. I used to be very faithful about such things, and then I started parking all the sales calls I seem to get daily into my own personal voice mail hell. Anyone who really wants to talk to me can either throw stuff at me from across the studio or IM me. So I had an overflowing voice mail box. I finally broke down and listened to all of them, but our system started doing really weird things to the ancient messages. They’d start and then go dead and ask me whether I wanted to delete or save the message. Excellent! I know just what to do with that sort of choice.

Phones. So twentieth century and quaint.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

She’s a Little Runaway

OK, no I’m not talking about the Bon Jovi song. I’m talking about one of our Xserves going crazy and refusing to co-operate.

The Xserve in question usually sits there, feeds and accepts data and behaves. Lately, though, it will freak out, the fans will kick into high gear and then there’s an uncomfortable silence after it has shut itself down.

Truth be told, it’s been loud and “fan-ny” for a while, but I got these new sound cancelling headphones from a friend (thanks, Tosh!) and I pretty much block out the rest of the world for 7.8 hours every day at work.

The machine hasn’t really shut itself down, it has just gone to sleep. It thinks it has gotten *very* hot, and so in order to prevent a total meltdown, it decides to take a quick nap. Would that I could do that on occasion as well. I’m not entirely convinced that it’s really *that* hot, I think it might be a flakey sensor, but I’m going to go through the motions on this one.

Digging through the logs provides this tantalizing tidbit:

Sep 26 14:40:20 vendetta kernel[0]: RackMac3,1 Thermal Manager: Thermal Runaway Detected: System Will Sleep}

Neat, huh?

I finally broke down and called Apple and it appears that Salt Lake City is too far out in the sticks to get same-day service. Nice. But I could take it to the local repair shop and they would order the part and replace it. Apparently, it’s a bad CPU. Interesting. I’d only be down for a couple of days.

Um, yeah. Not so great. The server in question holds around a terabyte of precious data. It’s not going anywhere, anytime soon. I could pull the spare mirror server from our co-location, but that’s kind of a pain in the booty and something I’d only realistically do if things really were melting off the box. So I convinced the nice AppleCare guy (Entreprise division representing, w00t!), that I could, all by my lonesome yank the naughty CPU and replace it with a nice one. As long as I don’t have to deal with thermal paste, I’m fine. Hate that stuff.

Long story short. It shipped the same day I placed the call. Should get here today. Very nice.

My only thing. Apple really believes that I live in “fly-over” territory. Look at this screen grab. Apparently I work in “Pioneer, UT,” not Salt Lake City as I had previously thought. I don’t think I even know where that is. Nope, even Google has no idea where that is.

Whatever, I just want the part.

*UPDATE*

The processor came, I swapped it out and now it’s running quiet as a kitten. A robot kitten with Dual Gigabit Ethernet, dual processors and over a terabyte of storage. Man, now that’s the kind of kitten I can get behind! Killer robot kittens! Apple should totally make those. Screw the touch screen video iPod or the iPhone that’s never going to come out. Where are the killer robo-kittens!?

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Happy Couple!

Picture taken about 7.5 million years ago. Seriously, I had it carbon-dated and it came back from the lab telling me that it was from the late cretaceous period (i.e., the late 80s)

A few things about that picture.

One: It’s our engagement photo. Yes, as you can tell from the photo, we got married when I was 14.

Two: See! I used to have hair. Glorious, full and bushy blond hair. It swished. It waved in the wind. I miss it.

Three: Look at those shoulder pads Reha is sporting in that dress! Dang, you could land a hot air ballon on those things.

In all seriousness, I really did *love* the way she looked in that dress. It had a drop waist (whatever that is) and this little sparkly clasp thing and a bow. Sexy!

Four: Though it didn’t seem like it to me at the time, dang those glasses enveloped my face. Wouldn’t you have thought I could have found something that better framed my visage?

Five: This just goes to show you that nothing good ever really comes of cleaning out file cabinets. You always find things that are both unexpected and potentially embarrassing.

Six: Reha looks *exactly* the same now as she did then. No kidding. A bit if gray at her temples and her face is skinnier now. 

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Obermann Just Goes to Freaking TOWN Here

Calling people a monkey! Dude… that’s harsh…

My favorite line:

“Until a grown up takes the job.”

Proximus

 

Favorite Entries

If you are new around here, the following entries have been reasonably well received. You might want to peruse these.

• Partners
• Correspondence
• Help Wanted
• From the Office of Mis-directed Email
• A Word from the Small Person in the House
• RNT Product Review: Chocolate Mix Skittles Left Me Sterile!
• Jon’s Report Card circa… A Long Time Ago
• Dear Gratuitously Naked Conversationalist at the Gym:
• A Peek Inside the Writer’s Guild and Producers’ Negotiations
• We Regret the Error
• Letters from a Homeowner to His General Contractor
• What I Did There
• Hermaphrodite Administrative Assistants and Receptionists Need Not Apply
• Giving Me an IM Account Was Obviously a Huge Mistake
• Official Ransom Note Typography Vista vs. Mac OS X Shootout
• I Need a Real Hobby
• Beat Down
• Big Fat Lies
• True Love
• Now MY Ovaries Hurt
• Don’t Get Her Started
• Disturbing Trend
• Had to do it
• Mooshy stuff
• Ransom Note Typography End User License Agreement “EULA”
• Diva-licious!
• Just so we’re clear
• PETA may have a point

Holy Crap! Look at all this STUFF down here. It's awesome!

Really, I'm glad you made it down here. Almost no one ever comes down here. I'm like in a freaking dungeon down here. I get lonely. But not you. YOU made it all the way to the end of the page. For this I think I've a little crush on you. I don't know, is "love" to strong a word to use in this situation? Well, if it's not "love," then it's very strong "like." I'm totally in like with you for coming down here. You are awesome. Please love me back! I know, I know, I shouldn't be all needy, it's not attractive at all, but you don't know how it is to be stuck down here. Who scrolls all the way to the end of a page anymore these days? Anyway, thanks for shedding some light down here in the depths. I appreciate it. Shoot me an email and I'll send you a dollar, OK?

©2005-2010 Jon B. Deal All Rights Reserved. I'm not kidding around here, I know people who know other people who would be willing to beat you up or similarly infringe on your rights, should you happen to infringe on my rights.