Slow times

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Hrm…I guess waiting a week between entries isn’t exactly the recommended technique for keeping a journal, is it? Of course, in my defense, I have been making the occasional post directly to my webpage from work. Now, one could, at this point, rather easily point out that that may not be the recommended technique for keeping a job…but that would just be cruel, and besides, I do it during breaks or lunch. So there. Bleah. :)

On a personal level, there just isn’t a whole lot of stuff going on in day-to-day life at the moment. My alarm goes off at 6am, I’m usually out of bed by 6:30, showered, dressed, and out the door by 7:25, and at work by 8am. I slog through work until 5pm, grab a bus home, then kill time reading or catching a movie (when I’m feeling rich enough to afford it), and am usually in bed by 10pm.

Rather amazingly dull, all laid out like that. Doesn’t seem all tht long ago that I was getting up between noon and 2pm, going to bed at six in the morning, and spending as much time as possible out with friends or at clubs, either DJ’ing or just having fun.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Okay, so that last line was a bit of an overstatement. A big overstatement. But still…does growing up — or at least getting older — really necessitate slipping into a routine so _un_inspiring that it actually inspires me to whine about it here?

I certainly hope not. Realistically, I can reassure myself that my current somewhat boring (and, therefore, bored) existance is a side effect of the move. I’m in a new town where I’m no longer the known personality that I was in Anchorage. I haven’t met very many people yet, and those I have I don’t run into that often, as Seattle is big enough that it doesn’t have an analogue to Vinyl (Village Inn, Northern Lights), that notorious center of the Anchorage social scene. I’m also in a much different financial situation — I’ve cut my pay by $1.50/hr from TimeFrame (and by $2.65/hr from my short stint at GCI), while nearly doubling my rent for an apartment roughly the size of my bedroom in Anchorage, and adding phone and electric bills that are no longer split with roommates to my monthly expenses. I no longer have a car, so my “sphere of influence” is limited to where I can go in a reasonable amount of time either by foot or by city bus.

Suffice to say, if anyone thought I was leaving Anchorage to make things easier on myself, they were sorely mistaken.

But, of course, that wasn’t why I left, as anyone who actually knows me decently well enough knows. I left for quite a few reasons — many of which I’ve ranted about on my webpage from time to time in the past — but primary among them was just the need to get out on my own in a new atmosphere.

Well, I’m out, I’m on my own, and this definitely isn’t Anchorage. I’ve known for a while that I probably wouldn’t really be in a decent spot financially until sometime in mid-October (with my last PFD estimated at $1800, parents owing me $1400 when they can get it to me, my bribe…er…tax refund of $300 showing up at some point, and another outstanding debt of roughly $1300 that I’m hoping will show up after PFD’s hit, I stand to be about $4800 better off if they all come through), it’s this nebulous paycheck-to-paycheck scraping by that gets pretty harrowing. Heck, if it weren’t for a landlord giving me castaways and a neighbor who abandoned his belongings when he bailed state, I still wouldn’t have any furniture!

Ah, well, I’ll make it — I just had to whine for a few moments. Things certainly aren’t all bad down here — my job is good, if not the most exciting in the world, I’m a bit strapped financially, though certainly not broke, my social life will pick up eventually, as there are things to do when I can afford it, and all in all, I’m really enojoying things as a whole. It’s just the niggling little details that can add up and look worse than they really are.

Of course, even when I claim that life is boring and I have nothing to do or say about it, I can still fill up eight-plus pages in this little notebook about my lack of anything to write about. ;) Like that will come as a surprise to anyone who knows me.

Oh, well. It’s a bit after 10pm, and much as it may grate on my nocturnal inclinations, these days that does mean that it’s bedtime for Bonzo. Until tomorrow, then (or whenever I get back to scribble in here again)….

Too cool for words

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Ooers…this is the kind of thing that convinces me that there is still some good stuff going on out there.

I just found a listing on the Corona Coming Attractions movie news/rumor site detailing a film that I will have my skinny lil’ butt planted in the seat for come opening day — HardWired. Alex Proyas (director of The Crow and Dark City) directing a sci-fi murder mystery where the suspects are Artificial Intelligences and/or robots, and it’s going to be the first in a series of films based upon the ideas and concepts from Isaac Asimov‘s I, Robot stories?!?

I am so there.

No more virus alerts

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I got this e-mailed to me at work today:

Warning regarding new virus:
DO NOT OPEN “NEW PICTURES OF FAMILY”

Hi – This looks like a bad one that’s coming.
Forward this to others.
Please read and forward to everyone you know……

DO NOT OPEN “NEW PICTURES OF FAMILY” It is a virus that will erase your whole “C” drive. It will come to you in the form of an E-Mail from a familiar person. I repeat a friend sent it to me, but called & warned me before I opened it. He was not so lucky and now he can’t even start his computer!

Forward this to everyone in your address book. I would rather receive this 25 times than not at all.

Also: Intel announced that a new and very destructive virus was discovered recently. If you receive an email called “FAMILY PICTURES,” do not open it. Delete it right away! This virus removes all dynamic link libraries (.dll files) from your computer. Your computer will not be able to boot up.

Okay, let’s take a look at this, shall we?

Please read and forward to everyone you know…I would rather receive this 25 times than not at all.

Please do not blindly forward every ‘alert’, ‘warning’, or whatever else to “everyone you know.” I don’t know about you, but I would much rather not receive anything twenty-five times. There’s quite a few good reasons not to do this, most of which really shouldn’t need to be spelled out, but people persist in doing these things anyway. If everyone actually did pass something on to everyone they knew, then each of those people did the same, everyone would instantly be getting multiple copies of every alert out there in their e-mail box. Oh, wait…we already do get multiple copies of this junk, don’t we? Hmmm….

Check to see if the information is accurate. No, I don’t mean open a suspected virus to see if it crashes your system. This ‘alert’ describes a virus that comes as an e-mail with a certain subject line, and when opened, erases your entire C:/ drive. A second virus (with a very similar distribution method and subject line) is also detailed, only this one erases all .dll files on your hard drive.

The easiest way to check the validity of the claims is to go to Symantec‘s website. Symantec is the maker of the most popular anti-virus programs for both Windows and Macintosh computers, so it stands to reason that they would have a pretty good handle on any new virii (incidentally, as one of the more popular anti-virus programs is Norton’s Antivirus, the web address www.norton.com also points to Symantec’s site). Their site does currently show a high security alert for a new virus — W32.Nimda.A@mm — however, the listed symptoms and affects do not match either of the virii described in this e-mail. The closest listed virus to either of those in the e-mail is Trojan.ZeroBoot, which writes zeros over the boot sector of a drive — this will prevent a computer from booting, and to a novice computer user, could look like the entire C:/ drive has been wiped.

Intel announced that a new and very destructive virus was discovered recently.

Think about what the e-mail is telling you. Why would Intel — a chip-maker, most known for the 80×86 line of processors (from the 286 up to and including the P4) — be releasing information about a virus? A quick check of Intel’s press releases shows nothing detailing anything about a virus. In general, virus alerts are released by either very few people (like Symantec) that you can trust, or by every bleedin’ moron with a keyboard at his fingertips (like anybody with ‘l33t’, ‘haX0r’, ‘d00d’, ’69’, or ‘420’ in their e-mail address), which you should take with a grain of salt.

Buy and use one of the many Anti-Virus/Firewall/Security products from Symantec, or any other reputable software company. This will save a lot of problems and headaches in the long run — you won’t get hit with virii, and I won’t have to wade through mass e-mails about the virii that are loose.

If you think you’ve been hit with a virus: Contact Symantec and/or any decently savvy computer geek (i.e., someone who knows how to do more than click away at the World Wide Web) to see if there is information or a patch for your particular virus. Then go out, buy, and install one of the Anti-Virus/Firewall/Security products I mentioned above.

One last little thing: If you do ignore all the rest of my little diatribe…one little thing about my computers. I’m a Mac fan for many reasons. Like, for instance — no .dll files. No C:/ drive. And — while we’re not virus free — there are far, far fewer virii out there for us to contend with. Sending me your alerts does nothing but fill up my mailbox, waste bandwidth on the ‘net, and give me a minor annoyance to deal with, which I then relieve by ranting and raving on my website for the world to see.

Let’s avoid that next time.

I don’t even know what to say to this

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God Gave U.S. ‘What We Deserve,’ Falwell Says.

Casey told me about this while I was over at his place this weekend, and I just stumbled across a news article with the details. It may be the single most disgusting and infuriating response I’ve seen yet to last week’s tragedy, and all the more so because of the people it comes from — men who claim to be spreading God’s word on earth.

I’m not even sure how to react, or what to say right off. I was amazed enough when Casey told me about it, but actually reading what those two men had to say…it’s just reprehensible. I’ll try and come up with something more substantial later.

A good weekend for movies

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In the midst of more and more news about the continuing aftermath of the WTC and Pentagon attacks, and in a world where it looks more and more like the U.S. may soon be declaring war, I decided it was a good time to take a bit of a vacation and head out to the movies. My reviews for the shows I checked out aren’t the best I’ve ever written, unfortunately — I’m kinda tired and have a light headache that I’m hoping won’t get any worse anytime soon — but I at least got something up.

Thursday night I saw The Crimson Rivers (good thriller), Friday I checked out O (a decent Shakepearean update), and today I watched The Ghosts of Mars (fun brainless sci-fi romp).

Other than that, things have been fairly uneventful for the most part. I’ve been keeping a pretty constant eye out on the news, and am working on collecting at least the first week’s worth of newspapers since Tuesday. So far, Saturday has been the only day I forgot to pick any up. Got together with Chad, Don, and a friend of theirs (whose name I’m spacing on) for breakfast at Jack’s Roadhouse Cafe on Saturday, then we all checked out the Capitol Hill Block Party up on Broadway. Other than that…not a whole lot of major import has gone on.

I’d post more, but I’m just feeling kind of lackadaisacal at the moment. Besides — Dez is behind me watching Braveheart on television, so it’s easy for me to get distracted. Until next time, then….

Hollywood Squares funnies

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I found this earlier today. After days of tragedy, horror, and worry, it’s nice to find something that actually got me laughing. Enjoy.

From The Original Hollywood Squares TV show. These are from the days when game show responses were spontaneous and not scripted like they are now.

Peter Marshall: Paul, can you get an elephant drunk?
Paul Lynde: Yes, but he still won’t go up to your apartment.

Read more

It all keeps getting scarier

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My god — the radio just reported that NY Mayor Giulianni (sp?) has requested 6,000 body bags for the excavations through the rubble. Racial tensions are on the rise — there’s a report on the radio now about shots being fired into a Dallas Mosque. It was done in the middle of the night, thankfully enough, so no one was hit, but it’s still a pretty sad event.

Apparently the remains of the southern tower of the WTC, which had been jutting about five stories into the air, finally collapsed into the rest of the rubble. Hopefully there was enough warning before it fell that it didn’t land on anyone.

On a brighter note, there have been five people pulled from the wreckage of the WTC. Pentagon death estimates have dropped to between 100 and 200, from the 800 that was being estimated earlier.

Of course, that still leaves a stunning number of people killed.

Airlines are slowly being granted permission by the FAA to resume operations, though it sounds like it will be sometime Thursday before any of them actually do — and that service will be restricted at first, under heavy security measures. One of the new restrictions following the news that the hijackers had used knives to take over the planes is that no knives of any sort will be allowed onto an airplane. Apparently it had been within regulation to carry “small” knives — up to four inches in length — onto planes. Four inches? That hardly sounds very “small” to me.

Talk of war is still flying around, and seems to be getting stronger and stronger. NATO earlier declared that it would honor Section V of the NATO accords, declaring that an act against any single member of NATO will be considered an act against all, and the other member nations will stand with the U.S. should we initiate an offensive strike against those who struck at us.

That is, of course, assuming that we are sure who it was that attacked us. Osama bin Laden is definitely the prime suspect, but consensus is far from definite at this point. Senator Oren Hatch (sp?) seems to be practically foaming at the mouth in his zeal to go after bin Laden, but thankfully, there are other, calmer voices repeatedly advocating the need to hold back until we are absolutely sure.

So many things are so haywire these days. Since all airplanes are grounded, the skies above Seattle have been bizarrely clear and quiet since Tuesday. Normally I’ll see a few flights a day coming into Sea-Tac through my office windows, so seeing empty skies is a bit disquieting. Conversely, though, anytime a noise like a plane is heard — which does happen occasionally, as some military flights and some helicopters are allowed aloft — everyone instantly starts looking up, trying to figure out where it’s coming from, where it might be going, and whether it’s friendly or not. The speed that something as familiar as an airplane engine can become a trigger for paranoia and fright is just staggering.

I just called and spoke with my parents until my phone card ran out. Was a nice, and very welcome, little piece of normalcy in the midst of all this turmoil. It turns out that Mom was able to go with Dad to Grandmother’s funeral, and they said that it was a very nice service. Dad said that it seemed like the entire town of Martinsville (Indiana) came out to the viewing.

They also told me that the prevailing opinion among Dad’s side of the family is that stable, boring jobs can be found anytime, and that if I can get a chance at this DJ’ing gig, I should take it. That was great to hear. Mom’s parents, of course, favor my staying with the stable, boring job — but that’s much as I expected, and while it would have been nice to have their support in my wanting to run off to sea (my, how turn-of-the-century that sounds), it’s also comforting to know that Grandma and Grandpa are still, most stolidly, the G&G I’ve known all my life. Wouldn’t want ’em any other way.

I also tried to call Miranda to find out how she’s doing, and to see if all the turmoil is affecting her husband David in any way. Should the U.S. end up entering into a wartime situation, he’d be one of the people virtually gauranteed to hit the front lines, due to the nature of his job. Given that the two of them have been working hard at getting through their differences, I’d hate to see him suddenly get called away to a situation that he might very well not come back from. Hard as it may be for some to believe, my thoughts and prayers go out to the two of them (and, of course, to their daughter Lorelei, Queen of Wozzles) as to anyone else.

That’s it for tonight, though.

Fascinating, frightening, and touching: eyewitness accounts

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Blogs from ground zero: Eclipsed (New York), Saranwarp (New York), East/West (New York/Oakland), UltraSparky! (New York), Andy’s Chest (New York), A Fire Inside (New York) (at least I think it’s from New York), Everlasting Blogstalker (New York), Fredosite (Washington, DC), Toothpick Girl (New York), World New York (New York) (this one looks really good), Lightningfield (New York), Mr. Barrett (New York), Mike Daisey (New York). I wouldn’t have had time to search all these out, many thanks to Blah Blah Blog Big Pink Cookie for originally posting most of them.

(11/25/2019 Update: In the time since this post was made, most of those links have gone dead.)

Political cartoons

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Lady Liberty in distressIt’s interesting. There’s a feature over at Slate with a lot of different political cartoons responding to yesterday’s tragic attacks. Most share a few obvious common themes — Uncle Sam being surprised/distraught/enraged by the attack, terrorists looming over the US, and so on — but there’s one theme that struck me as I kept seeing it come from the pen of so many different artists. That is the theme of Lady Liberty in distress as she witnesses the city she stands over in turmoil.

Lady Liberty stands tallHowever, there is one cartoon that I found to be much more effective — and to my mind, a much more welcome sentiment. Simply clouds of smoke, with Lady Liberty’s torch still held high, cutting through the destruction to continue casting her torchlight across America.

I’m not normally exactly rabidly patriotic — I’ve had more than my share of differences with the directions that this country and her leaders have taken over the years — but it still stirs something in me to see expressions of hope and optimism such as this one. I only wish there were more — it may be sorely needed in the weeks to come.

Still can’t really believe it

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First off, a brief recap of life since last Thursday.

Friday after work I got a call from Alex — turns out that it was his 23rd birthday, and he invited me to go out with him. Sounded cool to me, so at about 10pm I met up with Alex and his friend Melanie (who remebered me from The Lost Abby and Gig’s in Anchorage) at The Vogue. We hung out there for a bit until Nate showed up, then we all went over to The Mercury, a tiny little members-only goth/industrial club underneath an auto shop. I’d heard about it from Chad before, but this was my first time there — turns out it’s just about three blocks away from my apartment. Cool little place, too.

Friday night Alex and Melanie slept at my place, and we ended up spending all day Saturday bumming around town. That evening we went over to Casey’s place, and while neither Casey nor Chad were home, we spent a pleasant evening talking with Dez and ended up crashing out there.

Sunday I got dropped off back at my apartment (after a wonderful waffle breakfast compliments of Dez), and spent the rest of the evening doing laundry and relaxing at home. I did make one jaunt out to a local used book store and picked up Gödel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hoftstadter. I’d tried to read dad’s copy years ago, and it was way over my head — now I’m trying again.

Monday was fairly uneventful all the way around — just another workday.

Today, however, has been all sorts of bizarre, for reasons which should be fairly well known by now.

At about 9am EST this morning (just as I was getting up, at 6am here), in an amazingly coordinated terrorist attack, hijackers took control of four commercial airline flights. While one apparently missed its mark, crashing in the Pennsylvania countryside, one plowed into the Pentagon, destroying much of one side of the building, and the other two were piloted into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, which both eventually collapsed.

Only nine hours later, reports are still coming in. The President addressed the nation about half an hour ago — I’m not sure I’m too thrilled with his speech. While not too terribly ludicrous, it was a little to militaristic in tone, and it’s too easy for me to see this escalating until we could be looking at a major war, if not handled carefully. This whole things got me extremely worried — it’s definitely going to be fascinating watching how events unfold from here on out.

My neighbor just got home — I’m going to see if I can watch the news on his TV as soon as he’s off the phone.

It’s almost 9pm now — about 15 hours after the first strike. I spent the past few hours next door watching the news reports with Damon. Scary, scary stuff — there was one video taken by a cameraman that just happened to be at street level and caught the second plane hitting the WTC. It’s amazing — you can watch the plane fly into the building, and at first (except for the speed), it looks like it’s just flying into a hangar as it disappears into the building. Then the explosions rip through the walls of the skyscraper and debris comes tumbling down to the street.

The video continues and cuts to the point when the tower started to collapse. At first there were the flames that had been shooting out of the floors that had been hit by the plane, then suddenly more dust clouds started shooting out as the top section of the building started collapsing into the lower floors. From there the building just fell floor by floor onto itself, sending huge roiling clouds of dust and debris into the air.

The cameraman kept filming until you suddenly saw dust clouds coming towards him just a block away, when he put the camera down and started running. The camera was still on and pointing behind him as he carried it, though, and you can see the conflagration literally chasing the camera’s view down the street. It looked for all the world like some of the destruction scenes from Independence Day — only all the more horrifying because you knew that it was real.

Current rough death toll estimates are upwards of 1300 at the very minimum — an estimated 800 killed at the Pentagon, 266 among the four hijacked airplanes, and there were around 200 fire, police, and rescue workers in New York that responded after ther first airplane hit, and were lost when the buildings collapsed. And adding those numbers up to roughly 1300 doesn’t even include the thousands of possible victims from the two WTC towers.

For the first time in history, the FAA today ordered the grounding of all airplanes within the United States. They did this as soon as it became apparent that the airplanes were being used as weapons in the attacks. It may be noon EST (9am here) tomorrow before planes are allowed to fly again. In addition to the thousands of stranded passengers across the nation, the disruption of shipping may create additional problems for the already struggling economy, and no-one seems sure what long-term effects that may have.

All and all, it’s been an absolutely incredible and tragic day. The single biggest terrorist attack the world has ever seen, with repercussions that can only be speculated about at this early stage, and only the weeks to come will show where things go from here.

And on that note — it’s time for bed. I’m sure I’ll hear more about this in the morning.