Joey Gibson’s Blog

I went to my local Barnes & Noble yesterday to pick up book 18 of the Aubrey–Maturin series, The Yellow Admiral. While there, I looked around just to see what else was available. I’m a sucker for great cover artwork and have bought many books based on my initial reaction of seeing the cover. And I’ve also gotten burned doing that. It happened with Every Which Way But Dead, which turned out to be the third book of a series. I went back and bought the first book, but didn’t like it, never tried the second one, and thus ended up with a pristine copy of book 3, that I’ll never use.

It happened again yesterday. I saw an excellent cover on Endgame by Kristine Smith, so I picked it up. I read the back cover and it sounded interesting. So I bought it. Later in the day, I looked it up on Amazon, just to see what people were saying about it. That’s when I found out that it’s actually the fifth book in a series. I picked the book up and read every single word on both covers and the spine and there is absolutely no indication that this book is part of a series. I’ve still got the receipt, so I’m going to take the book back and see if I can swap it for something else. There’s a chance I might swap it for the first book in the series, but more than likely I’ll go for the 19th Aubrey-Maturin book.

Note to publishers: I don’t like feeling tricked. I don’t know if this was an oversight or an attempt at deception, but it’s certainly cost you this sale, and it may have soured me against the entire series. Be honest with book buyers about when a book is part of a series. You know if it’s part of a series or not, so how about let us know before we buy. You’ll get more sales in the end.

I’ve been a member of several groups at Yahoo! Groups since before Yahoo bought eGroups. That’s quite a long time. At 06:30 this morning, I realized that I hadn’t seen any email from any of those groups for a while. So I got up and checked and discovered what I knew I was going to see: email delivery to my address had been turned off since 12/15 because of a “hard bounce.” This happens every month or so, and it’s always the same thing:

Remote host said: 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content [BODY]

What that means is that someone (not me) sent an email containing a virus to one of the lists. The list then tried to deliver it to me, but my mail server rejected it. And Yahoo’s list manager then interpreted that bounce as indicating that my email address won’t accept email, and turned off all delivery to me. Does this make sense to you? Someone else sends a virus and my email gets turned off.

I actually think that both Yahoo Groups and my mail server share blame in this case. My mail server shouldn’t bounce a virus-laden email, it should just quietly throw it away. It’s not like anyone who intentionally sends a virus really needs to see the bounce message; they know what they’re doing. And Yahoo Groups’ server is too stupid to interpret the bounce message and quietly ignore it. Instead, it penalizes me. But what, exactly, is my mail server?

That question is interesting because I can’t be sure whose mail server is the culprit. The reason is that there are three mail servers involved in sending me email. GoDaddy is my domain registrar, and therefore they maintain my MX records, and all my mail is first sent to them. I also have a SpamCop account. I have a forwarding address setup with GoDaddy that sends all email for me to SpamCop. SpamCop, once the email has been checked for spam, then forwards the email to my Gmail account. Since the bounce message that I’m allowed to see doesn’t include any details, I don’t know which server sent actually did the bouncing. Two days ago I stopped using my SpamCop account, so now I’m down to just GoDaddy’s and Gmail’s servers, and I’m hoping that the troublesome server belonged to SpamCop. If I get turned off again, I guess I’ll know it wasn’t.

It’s very frustrating to get turned off like this, over and over, because of someone else’s nefarious acts.

I just tried to activate my two Chase bank credit cards and both times, even though it’s supposed to be a completely automated process, before I could do it I had to speak to a salesman. The recording as they dump you to the sales department essentially tells you that you’re going there for an upsell. The salesman on the first call took the hint quickly that I didn’t want to talk, and I finished in about 10 seconds. When I called to activate the second one, that guy didn’t want to take the hint. I spent about 30 seconds with him, which was 30 seconds too long. I appreciate the security of doing the whole activation thing, but forcing me to talk to sales just annoys me.

If you haven’t heard about this, you should have. A British teacher working in Sudan (why on Earth, I don’t know) has been imprisoned for allowing her students to name a teddy bear “Mohammed.” That’s right, she’s in jail for naming a stuffed bear Mohammed. But that’s not enough for our bloodthirsty “friends” the Muslims. No, lots and lots of them (apparently) want her dead for “insulting the prophet.”

I’ve had it with Muslims and their demands. I have had it with the PC phrase “Islam is a religion of peace.” It’s not. It’s a stone age death cult with its adherents doing everything they can to bring everyone in the world under its domination.

Here are some choice quotes from the article: (emphasis mine)

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear “Muhammad.”

The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.

They called for Gibbons’ execution, saying, “No tolerance: Execution,” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad.”

I suppose, in fairness, I should say that it’s nice that they were willing to go with a firing squad instead of sawing her head off. That’s a nice touch.

Many protesters carried clubs, knives and axes…

A Muslim cleric at Khartoum’s main Martyrs Mosque denounced Gibbons during one sermon, saying she intentionally insulted Islam. He did not call for protests, however.

“Imprisoning this lady does not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in Sudan. But we welcome imprisonment and expulsion,” the cleric, Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri, a well-known hard-liner, told worshippers.

Yep, that “thirst” for blood is a hard one to quench.

Based on further bits in the story, it does appear that the further away from that backwards area of the world you get, the response of Muslims is a bit more fair. But many of them still believe that she should be punished for “insulting the prophet;” they just feel that her sentence was too harsh. They still think she should still be punished for it.

We’ve been to two restaurants since Thursday night: the Big Joy Chinese place in Stone Mountain, GA and the local Red Robin and both served up crappy meals.

The first was the Big Joy. No joy there for us. While the restaurant itself was lovely on the inside and the staff was friendly and courteous, the food was awful. The egg rolls came out wallowing around in brown grease, and each contained enough grease to fill a fryer. The allegedly spicy beef dish that I got was bland and uninspired. The Mongolian beef my wife got was stringy, horse-like and also singularly uninspired. The steamed rice was OK, I guess.

The second was today at the Red Robin. Now, this place bills itself as “gourmet” hamburgers. I’ve been there a few times, and to be honest, I don’t know why I keep going back. These “gourmet” burgers are nothing more than frozen beef patties like what you could get in the frozen section of any grocery store. In other words, I could go buy some Bubba Burgers, toss them on my grill and have burgers as good as (if not better than) those at Red Robin. What I want in a burger is like what you get at Chili’s or LongHorn Steakhouse; real hamburgers, hand-made by a human. If I wanted frozen burgers, I’d go to Kroger and save myself some money. The only thing “gourmet” about the burgers at Red Robin is the price. The standard “gourmet” burger is $8.50. It isn’t worth $4.

But the real problem at Red Robin today was what my wife ordered. Based on the description, the “Gourmet Mac & Cheese with Chicken” sounded great. Here’s what the menu says about it

A tasty new take on macaroni and cheese. Made with a masterful culinary combination of Cheddar, American and Goat cheeses, topped with juicy chicken breast, diced hickory-smoked bacon, crushed croutons and parsley. It’s good to be a kid again.

It’s $11.50. Let me say that again. It was $11.50. For Mac & Cheese. She didn’t want the chicken, so that brought it down to $9.50. When it came out, it was a pitifully small bowl of spiral noodles with what looked like melted Velveeta on them. We both looked at it and said, “That’s $10 worth of Mac & Cheese?” We were not happy. We got a manager over who looked at it and said, “I don’t think I’d eat it, either,” which was a good sign, but then she said, “What do you want me to do about it?” Wrong thing to say. As a manager, you should already have a plan for what to do about it. My wife tried to eat some of it, but it was crap. We ended up paying part of the price, but not the whole thing. Regardless, what we paid was still far more than what it was worth.

I can say with 100% certainty that I won’t be going back to the Big Joy again. We might end up at the Red Robin again because my boy likes the “endless” fries, but it won’t be for a while.

I swear I keep wondering to myself why I bother to read bOING bOING because they are nothing but a bunch of intellectually small, whiny liberals. Occasionally they post something cool, but most of the time they just whine about the war, the President and/or capitalism. Sometimes simultaneously.

Today they have a story bemoaning the fact that Melbourne, Australia is getting tough on graffiti “artists.” They use code words like “street art” to mask the fact that graffiti is, at its core, vandalism. Yes, that’s right, vandalism. Unless the “artist” in question owns the wall that is being used as the “canvas” it is vandalism, plain and simple. Yet they use phrases like “Melbourne’s graffiti scene killed,” “until now one of the world’s epicentres of street art” and “the government has adopted a Giuliani-esque zero-tolerance policy to sanitise the city” to make you think that something of value is being “lost.” I have to say that if Melbourne has become known as an epicenter of “street art” then the government there has been extremely lax in enforcing vandalism laws, and this “Giuliani-esque” policy is long overdue.

If graffiti “artists” want to express their “talent” let them pay for a building and then paint whatever they feel like on its walls. Until then, they are nothing more than common vandals and should be prosecuted as such. Now that I think of it, a fitting punishment, if the “artist” is caught and convicted should be to remove their own “work” using a sand blaster, whitewash, etc, as appropriate. That would be beautiful.

For the past 36 hours, a wanted murderer from Florida has been sitting on a construction crane, several hundred feet in the air, keeping police at bay, in the Buckhead area of Atlanta. The august police force has completely shutdown Peachtree Street (a major road here) and kept it closed since all this began. Rather than doing everything they can to get this guy down, the police are coddling him. He was cold, so they sent up a blanket. He was hungry, so they sent up food. He had to take a leak, so they sent up a bucket.

The police say they closed Peachtree St. because he is hanging out over it and they don’t want him to jump onto the road. Which begs the question: why don’t they just turn the crane? Why are they coddling him? This has gone on for about 35.5 hours too long.

The latest news is that he is moving around up there, dismantling the crane, and dropping the various parts into the latrine bucket. Won’t that be nice for the poor saps who have to put the crane back together.

Anyway, once it was clear who the guy was (murderer) and that he wasn’t coming down, they should have turned the crane so he was no longer over the road, set up an air bag under him, and then asked him once more pretty please to come down. If he declined, there are a couple of methods they could have employed to get him down.

1. Start moving the crane to make him fall.
2. Send up a cop to push him off.
3. Shoot him (rubber bullets or lead, or tranquilizer darts, I don’t care)

Whichever method they chose, this ridiculous event would be over and the people and businesses in Buckhead could get back to business.

One of my biggest annoyances of late is finding an interesting/cool/useful blog, only to discover that they have neither an RSS feed nor an Atom feed. This annoys me because, as a rule, I don’t visit blogs by hand. In other words, usually after my first visit to a blog, I add it to my aggregator, and then read it that way.

I happen to be using Omea from JetBrains, but I have also used SauceReader, SharpReader, FeedDemon, FeedReader and BottomFeeder. Anyway, once I find a good blog that has a proper feed, I add it to my aggregator, and then read it through that tool, whenever there’s new stuff to read. I don’t go back to the blog in my browser. So, when a good blog has no feed, I get very annoyed. What usually happens at that point is I add a bookmark to the blog in question, and then promptly forget that I ever saw it.

With the word “blog” getting so much press lately, I think it might be a good thing to say that to truly be called a blog, you have to have an RSS/Atom/feed-flavor-du-jour. It wouldn’t really solve anything, of course, but precise terms are always nice to have.

My other feed annoyance is invalid feeds, but I can’t really say much about that because my own Atom feed is currently missing a field… My excuse is that I didn’t write the exporter, I just used someone else’s code… Yes, I know… I need to get it fixed…

Yes, that’s right. I said “I hate people with Nextel phones.” And why do I hate these people? Because they use that damned walkie-talkie feature of their phones without regard for those who might be around them. I’m sick and tired of sitting in a restaurant and two tables over some ass-clown is sitting there on his walkie-talkie, carrying on like he’s the only person in the place. The conversations generally go something like this: (imagine, please, that “DeedleUp!” is the annoying Tricorder sound those awful phones make in walkie-talkie mode)

Come on, people! If you must use the walkie-talkie feature, take it outside the restaurant!!! No one else in the place gives a flying damn if you got your lumber delivered, or picked up the kids or got the dry cleaning. We don’t care, and we don’t want to have to listen to your conversation. Show some courtesy!

OK, folks, the Grammar Nazi™, here. It’s time for a little lesson on spelling and grammar. Today we are discussing the similar, yet very different words “your” and “you’re” since so many people can’t seem to use them properly. “Your” is a word indicating ownership or possession. “You’re” is a contraction of “you” and “are” indicating that “you are” doing something. According to Webster,

• your = of or relating to you or yourself or yourselves especially as possessor or possessors…
• you’re = you are

Now, repeat after me: your and you’re are not interchangeable! It’s very annoying to read sloppy emails and blog postings from folks who can’t get this straight! Sentences like “If your an Eclipse user…” and “Be sure to set you’re clock back tonight” really get under my skin. It does seem like more people use “your” when they should have used “you’re” than screw up in the other direction, which I do find marginally interesting. I think this whole problem stems from our increased reliance on spell checkers; they won’t catch errors like this because both are valid words, just not in that particular context. I have yet to see a spell checker that would flag “your” when you should have used “you’re,” but maybe they do exist somewhere.

The fact remains: This is not rocket science, and how you write publicly is a representation of who you are and how attentive to detail you are. Some people say “it’s just an email,” or “it’s just my personal blog,” but I don’t see it that way. An email (or blog) is you presenting yourself to another person (or lots of people). If all someone knows of you is your email or your blog, that’s all they have to form an opinion of you. If your grammar and spelling are sloppy, then it seems reasonable to assume that you are too.

Please don’t get me started on “its” vs. “it’s” or “affect” vs. “effect.”

This article is about a demonstration by Students for Life at the University of Maryland, College Park, showing graphic photos of aborted babies. There are quite a few students who didn’t appreciate the photos. I guess if you have convinced yourself that a baby is just tissue until it is delivered, and it is the “mother’s inalienable right” to dispose of it as is most convenient for her, then seeing photos like these can be… unsettling. I have to ask, though: how do you think those dead babies feel? Molly Girona, a student and probable member of NOW had this to say

“It’s horribly offensive, I don’t want to have to look at that on my way to class. I don’t think it should be pushed on me.”

The truth hurts, doesn’t it, honey? You don’t want to have to look at it because deep down in your heart you know that supporting abortion is supporting murder.

Another student, a supporter of the demonstration, had this to say

“I think if this is the reality, there’s no sense in softening the blows[.]”

Precisely. The pro-death camp has altered the debate by altering the language. They speak of “choice” and “unviable tissue masses” and “dilation and extraction” to soften the edges; to convince people that they are not really killing a human being. Changing the language doesn’t change the reality, even though lots of people like to pretend that it does. People need to see these horrible images so that they know and understand just what they are supporting. And so that they won’t forget. Just like photos of the Nazi death camps needs to be seen so that people never forget what happened, photos showing what has happened to 42,000,000 children since Roe v. Wade need to be seen. People need to feel sick and uneasy and angry and disgusted when confronted with photos of aborted children. When the people of a nation are no longer sickened by what is happening to their young, they cease to be a civilized nation.

For all you worthless punks out there who get off on writing and spreading computer viruses, I’d like to paraphrase Robert DeNiro as Al Capone in The Untouchables. And here’s what I’d like to say:

I want you all DEAD!!! Do you hear me?!? DEAD! I want your families DEAD! I want your houses burned to the ground! I want you violated in more ways that I can count!

OK, so I don’t actually want anyone dead, but I’m sticking with the bit about having them violated… Why am I so mad this morning? Because in the past 24 hours I’ve received over 100 copies of the supposed Microsoft “patch” and various alleged bounce messages because of the W32/Swen@MM worm. People are getting infected with this thing, and it then sets about emailing itself to people that the victim’s computer has emailed before. I’ve gotten close to 10 megabytes of this damned thing just since yesterday! I’m sick of it. Please people, update your antivirus defs and, most importantly, STOP OPENING ATTACHMENTS FROM EMAIL!!!!! And stop using Outlook and Outlook Express.

This is a really funny and sad story all at the same time. Funny because the RIAA surprised 200k thieves on the Grokster and Kazaa file stealing - er, sorry - sharing networks with an instant message telling them that they were stealing music and could face legal action. I think that’s extremely funny. The sad part is the reaction that so many people are having to it. One quote from the story is

“Way to go, RIAA. Sue and threaten the public, your customers. I think I’ll go and download[...]”

Yeah. Customers. Generally, customers pay for products and don’t steal them. But that’s a point that gets lost on a lot of folks. The responses on /. are predictably asinine…

I got this from Neal Boortz this morning. I totally agree:

A Georgia lawmaker wants a law to make it a crime to smoke inside a car in which a child is restrained in a car seat. Let’s go further. Make it an act of child abuse. There is only one word to describe parents who smoke around their children .. especially when their children are trapped in a car. Foul-smelling, ignorant, pathetic, disgusting drug addicts. OK, so that’s six words; seven if you count foul-smeiling as two words.

If you force your kid to suck in that smoke and participate in your addiction, you are a child abuser and deserve every bit of scorn that is heaped upon you.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the disgusting, abhorrent, terrible Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Yes, it was 30th years ago today that the murder of the unborn was legalized. Since then 42 million children have been systematically destroyed in this country. 42 million children. Today the pro-abortion crowd will be “celebrating” 30 years of killing babies without consequence, and that should give one pause.

Two interesting things about Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” in Roe v. Wade:

• She didn’t end up having an abortion; she gave birth to a girl whom she gave up for adoption
• in 1995 she changed her position on abortion. She is now vehemently opposed to abortion.

Wouldn’t it be nice if more people would change their positions?

This is a sad day in our history that there are rallies and dinner parties being held to “celebrate” something as horrible as this. And please don’t give me the indignant “How dare you try to tell a woman what she can do with her body!?!” or the absurd “If men had to carry the babies, abortions would be even easier to get than they are now” claptrap. We are talking about the murder of innocent children.

I’m sure you’ve seen those ridiculous ads paid for by Arianna Huffington equating those who drive SUVs with terrorists and terrorist-supporters. I’ll remember that the next time I’m gassing up my Ford Expedition.

The spots claim that since SUVs suck up so much gas that all of the money spent on it is going to terrorist nations that sell us gas. So if my SUV takes 40 gallons and her Yugo takes 20, the money for that extra amount that I used is supposedly going directly to the terrorists. What about the first 20 gallons that we both used? Did that gas come from some non-terrorist country? Is it just the extra that supports terrorists? It seems like if you follow this “buying gas = funding terrorist” then we need to stop using all gas to stop funding terror. (Or start drilling in the ANWR to reduce our dependence on foreign oil!) Her “argument” completely breaks down if you think about it for 16 seconds.

Here’s a good article rebutting her stupid claims. This is my favorite quote from it:

It may be obvious by now that I own an SUV. Wrong. I own two. Large ones. Two Yukon XLs. Best car I have ever driven. Nice and roomy.

Read it.

I am so mad right now I can hardly see straight! My DSL provider for the last 18 months, DirecTV DSL has gone Tango Uniform, so now I have to find a new DSL provider. I had settled on SpeakEasy.net because they provide static IPs (two!) and they don’t require PPPoE. Well after almost two weeks of waiting after placing my switch order, I get an email today telling me that Covad says I’m too far away from a CO and thus it’s impossible to give me ADSL. To which I asked “Then how have I been getting perfect ADSL service for the last 18 months from DirecTV?”

Not content to wait for them to read the email, I called SpeakEasy. I am greeted by the recording of a very chipper Australian girl telling me that the longest waiting call has been waiting for zero seconds. “Cool,” says I. So I wait. Sometime later the same lass comes on and tells me that the longest waiting call has been waiting for 1:40. “I guess that would be me, then.”

Finally a very friendly and helpful gentleman answers. I give him the order number and he looks it up. He then explains to me that the reason I’ve been getting ADSL service from DirecTV is because they had a deal with BellSouth that would give them access to BellSouth’s remote stations. So while I have apparently always been too far from a CO, I was really close to a remote station. Unfortunately Covad (the underlying provider for SpeakEasy) has no such deal and would only be able to go to the CO. Great.

So my choices come down to pretty much three:

1. Go with BellSouth (not! they don’t offer static IP and they require PPPoE)
2. Find a provider who is in bed with BellSouth
3. Accept inferior IDSL service from SpeakEasy (not! IDSL is only 144k u/l and d/l)

So it looks like option 2 is my only real choice… I’m really pissed…

Anyone know how to discover if a DSL provider is in bed with BellSouth?