the gookins dot net

Today I had one of those days where I planned ahead to get a bunch of stuff done and nothing went as planned. I don’t know why I expect anything to go smoothly.
The morning started of with me starting waking up at 4:30 am. Don told be goodbye at 7, and shortly after that I covered my head with a pillow to block out the birds and the sunshine. I must have slept like a rock like that because I didn’t wake up until 10.
Don had patched some drywall last week (getting rid of the last of the funky ’60s intercom and the wall phone jack) and my plan was to texture and paint those today, as well as paint the new drywall in the basement that I primered a couple weeks ago. After breakfast and fielding about 7 phone calls I dug out the texture stuff, which looked funky, and maybe that black stuff was mold?!? Out that went, and I had Don pick some up on his lunch. Scratch that plan for today.
Next I got out the paint for the basement wall, the nice, thick Sherwin Williams paint that we had used on the rest of the basement. I mixed and mixed, but the paint was runny, like it had been watered down. What the heck? Scratch that plan.
I called the dance photographer, as I received a picture of a group of girls that doesn’t include either of my kids. The gal I talked to took my info and said she would do some checking and call me back. I’m still waiting.
I tried ordering a DVD online. It declined my credit card.
The insurance company says it overpaid us and wants money back. I can’t find the claim they are referring to, even on our account online. I didn’t feel like waiting a half hour on hold to talk to someone by that time.
With my day going the way it was, I decided to avoid any sharp objects like the mower, knives, or the saw for the other projects on my list…
I did get the basement room reorganized, dusted, and mopped (a big feat since it’s the room with the freshly sanded drywall). I also got the laundry/storage/utility room cleaned and reorganized. It’s still full of a bunch of junk, but it’s clean and things are tidy.
So the entire day wasn’t a waste, but I would like to check a few things off of the top of my to-do list for a change. Maybe tomorrow.

When I left for work today it was 18 degrees below zero. I think the high temperature today was around -5 degrees. I went out to get some lunch and my nose hairs froze while walking out to my car. Actually, it was Christine’s car, since mine wouldn’t start. I feel really sorry for the mail carriers, delivery guys, and anyone else who has to work outside in this weather; they’re the ones who really have something to complain about.

Update: It’s almost 11 p.m. and I just got back from checking on my parents’ house. It’s -13 now and in some places the exhaust from furnaces is just sort of hanging in mid-air over the streets. I guess it must be too cold for it to dissipate quickly; it’s very surreal to see, like mini-clouds hanging there at about the height of the streetlights.

I placed an order for a Christmas present through RedOrbit. Yesterday I got an email from them.

Christine,

Unfortunately, the item your ordered is no longer available through our distributor. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Your order has been canceled and the release of authorization from your credit card has been issued.
Have a great day.

Thanks,
Joel
RedOrbit - E-Commerce

Fuckers.

Their website said (and I quote):

Quantity 98 item(s) available

So if you’re considering ordering from them, beware. They may not have what you want and apparently can’t figure out how to have their website reflect an out of stock product. Mine still shows up as “available” today.

So, Joel, if you’re reading this, take the damn item off your website, because if they continue their crappy service, you’ll be out of a job. And have a great fucking day. Thanks for ruining mine.

We have about 2 inches of snow this morning, with another 1-3 inches forecast for today.

Rrrr. I hate snow.

I don’t know if this is more frightening or more depressing. Security expert Bruce Schneier and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg see what they can get through airport security.

Boxcutters, pocketknives, Osama bin Laden t-shirts, and a Hezbollah flag were just a few of the items they passed through. They were even allowed through with fake boarding passes and without a photo ID. The article also explain how you can easily get through security even if your name is on the no-fly list, and how a terrorist could fabricate a knife in the airport bathroom after passing through security.

You have to read it to believe it.

The Bee Gee’s song “Stayin’ Alive” can now be taken literally. The American Heart Association says the song has a great tempo to perform CPR to. Bonus: The linked article has a video of the song, too.

A 1953 experiment on abiogenesis by Stanley Miller simulated conditions on early Earth and tested to see if a chemical reaction could produce life. His results showed the production of two amino acids - the building blocks of living cells. His simulated environment later turned out to be different that what early Earth was probably like, so the results can’t be said to be a model of the origins of life. Miller’s apparatus and original samples were recently found and the samples were re-analyzed using technology that wasn’t available 55 years ago.The new results found 22 amino acids. His experiment was more successful than he thought, and the new findings may pave the way for further research.

Because the GOP knows that John McCain is about to get his ass handed to him by Barack Obama, they are starting to play the “it’s not fair” card. Over the next few weeks, they will be talking a lot about vote fraud, and will be citing the investigation into ACORN as their evidence. The problem? Aside from the fact that ACORN reported the problem in the first place, and despite what the Republican Party will insinuate, there is a difference between registration fraud and vote fraud.

NASA: Space smells like steak. If God is out there somewhere, he must be grilling something up.

Watched the second debate tonight. John McCain is coming off more and more like a crotchety old man. I guess that’s because he is. He reminds me of the old dudes in my neighborhood who wear black socks and sock suspenders with shorts, and drive 5 mph down the street when they get up at 5:00 a.m. to go for breakfast at the grocery store cafeteria.

McCain is getting desperate and a little nasty with his attacks on Obama. I think that will just turn off the undecided voters. And nice plan for health care there, Johnny. A $5000 tax rebate that people can use to buy insurance? Where in the hell can you buy a family plan for $5000/year? You’d be lucky to insure a family for $1000/month. And that’s just the premiums; add in the deductibles and co-pays and $5000 ain’t gonna buy you shit.

And you know what else bugs me about McCain? The way his teeth whistle when he uses words with a strong “s” sound. He sounds like the bastard child of Ronald Reagan and that lisping snake in Disney’s version of the Jungle Book.

If you’re looking for in depth analysis of the dabate, here it is:
McCain sucks. Obama did well. That is all.

Don left it up to me to ’splain the happenings of why Matt won’t be doing soccer. Or fencing. Or playing football at the park with friends for a few weeks.

First off though, I’m pissed at myself because I missed a planning meeting Sunday due to brain fry from overscheduling. I realized it this morning, then realized I had double scheduled us this afternoon for bowling and the park.

We went bowling for a little over an hour, I got to talk with my friend Bobbi while the youngins bowled the longest game ever (the ball rolls mighty slowly when the bowlers are 4, 6, 8, and 10). Bobbi filled me in on all the info from Sunday’s meeting.

Then off to the park. One of the older girls has been feeling under the weather, and they left for the doctor after we all took a look at her huge tonsils. We found out later that she has mono.

Matt and his friend Dylan started a game of “500″ (catching football passes for points). Matt fell catching a pass and Dylan landed on top of Matt’s left shoulder. Dylan got up right away and said when he fell on Matt he heard a “crack”. That was the sound of Matt’s clavicle breaking. I saw the x-ray right after they took it and it was quite obvious. The sucky part was that we went to our clinic. They had to send us to the hospital for x-rays. The radiologist sent us to the ER to see another doc. The ER couldn’t figure out why we were there. We waited forever for them to get everything straight by talking to the doctor and radiology. So two doctors, one x-ray, about twenty different nurses asking the same damn questions, and probably $1000 later we have ten Tylenol #3’s and a little sling. He didn’t even get the second x-ray to check for shoulder damage or much of an exam at the hospital. It was a wee bit frustrating. I am hoping they aren’t overlooking something else by focusing on the obvious. He was a brave little guy. He has a pretty high pain tolerance, but was gray and sweaty and cried a bit on the way to the clinic. I felt soooo bad for him.

So our schedule’s a little more free over the next three weeks or so. Matt will be back in action, oh, about the time soccer season is over.

My stupid, crappy, you-get-less-than-you-pay-for webhost, 1and1.com is really frickin’ annoying me. All I want to do is upload a tiny little Wordpress plugin and I cannot connect with my server via FTP or through their control panel. I’ve tried FTP through my FTP client and through the address bar of three different browsers, and it won’t connect. I’ve gone to the control panel with three different browsers and it tells me to upgrade my browser even though I’m using the most up-to-date version of each. And I’ve triple-checked my username and password. In other words, I’m not doing anything wrong, it’s their complete piece of crap server. (Yes, it’s hosted on a Linux box, but they apparently don’t know how to run it.) RRRRRRR.

So far I’ve stayed away from commenting on the whole deal with McCain choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. As soon as McCain made the announcement, the MSM and the blogosphere started digging to find out more about her. There have been so many claims made by both sides you practically need a scorecard to keep track.

Because of the number of potentially damaging revelations that have come out, the lefty bloggers keep insisting that the McCain campaign failed to properly vet her. And I keep thinking to myself, maybe they did know everything that would surface, but they didn’t care. Maybe they actually wanted the controversy in order to avoid talking about the real issues. It’s the old “shiny things” strategy.

So instead of discussing the fact that unemployment is higher than it’s been in five years, we get: “Did you hear about Palin’s pregnant, unwed teenage daughter?” (”Ooooh look! Shiny thing!”)

And instead of talking about record budget deficits, we get: “She’s a hockey mom and she can field dress a moose.” (”Ooooh look! Shiny Thing!) (Aside: whenever I hear that, I picture her out in a field, trying to get clothes and matching accessories onto a moose.)

Granted, some of the controversies are worth discussing since they pertain to the real issues, but even those are being spun so hard by the Republicans that the result is…Ooooh look! Shiny Thing!

One of the real issues is Palin’s support for budget earmarks for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. Palin and McCain have been portraying her as a reformer who stopped this poster child for government waste. The truth is that she supported it until Congress had already killed the project, and then she switched her position, but took the Federal money anyway and spent it elsewhere. As this article in the Washington Monthly points out (link via Daryl), McCain and Palin keep repeating this lie, even though it’s already been shown to be nothing more than a lie.

The authors asks “So, why repeat a lie that’s already been exposed? Who knows?” I’ll tell you why. Because that’s the whole modus operandi of the Republican Party. Who cares about reality. Make up something and repeat it over and over again. Remember Bush and the WMDs in Iraq? Lie. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Remember Bush with we’re not wiretapping American citizens? Lie. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Apparently McCain is adopting Bush’s strategies, not just his policies.

Luckily all of this nonsense over Palin should die down relatively soon. Then McCain will have to come up with some new Shiny Things to draw attention away from the issues.

Commenter meister mentioned here that police in the twin cities had preemptively raided several houses where groups were planning for protests of the Republican National Convention.

Police in SWAT gear entered private homes, handcuffed people who were not doing anything illegal, and confiscated video gear, computers, and even anti-Republican literature. It’s not clear at this point whether or not there were even search warrants for each raid, and in at least one case a raid was predicated on “fire code violations”. Police in riot gear for fire code violations? Give me fucking break. These people were not doing anything illegal. They had not even staged a protest yet, and there’s nothing to suggest that a protest would have included any illegal activity. What the hell happened to the right to peacefully assemble? The right to free speech? Apparently these things no longer exist in America. I’m ashamed of my country.

If you want to read the details, Glenn Greenwald has good coverage at Salon, and the NY Times has a write-up too.

Christine and I had a chance to go out tonight since the kids were at my parents, so in an attempt to find out what was happening in Des Moines, I did some Googling.

I came across this list of the 10 Best Things To Do in Des Moines. Yes, that’s right. Des Moines is so boring that the Top 10 list only has 8 things.

And most of the things on the list are lame. Billy Joe’s Pitcher Show? Sure if you like to watch movies that were out on DVD three months ago while being served frozen pizza and warm beer. Or Prairie Meadows Casino? Maybe if you like bland buffets and playing the penny slots with blue-hairs that smell like mothballs.

The sad thing is that this isn’t just a poorly-done list. It really does cover most of the entertainment options around here, aside from restaurants and bars.

We just watched the Transformers movie tonight. Ugh. It was way too long - 2 hours and 23 minutes for an action movie? This thing was in serious need of some editing. It took about the first half hour for character development, with very few action scenes. They don’t even reveal the nature of the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons until like an hour in. They throw in several crude humor references that really don’t fit, and then the last 45 minutes or so is non-stop action, but it’s so over the top and relentless that it is just draining. Really, the only redeeming feature is the CGI effects when the Transformers well…transform.

I guess somebody must have liked this film though. They’re making a sequel.

I remember back to my childhood during the height of the Cold War in the 70’s and 80’s, learning about Communism. I was told about how the government in Russia controlled everything. They decided where you lived, where you worked, and where you could go. I was told that the people there could not leave the country, and had to show identification just to travel within its borders. Of course, that could never happen in the United States, we were told, because we are a “free country”. That was then, this is now.

Admittedly, things in the U.S. aren’t that bad yet. Yet. But hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear a story of how civil rights are being eroded right here. Warrantless wiretapping by the federal government, DHS agents seizing laptops and other devices without cause, and police raids on innocent, unsuspecting citizens in their own homes are just a few of the examples. Here’s another one that worries me.

Remember the checkpoints set up by police in certain Washington D.C. neighborhoods, that caused such a stir in July? I heard about it and was somewhat bothered, but I knew that a lawsuit had been filed and figured it was an isolated happening that would eventually be settled and would fade away. Now I’m not so sure.

Now, the mayor of a small town in Arkansas has enacted a 24-hour curfew, in which police armed with military gear are questioning anyone at anytime about where they are going and why. The curfew began in a crime-ridden neighborhood, but the city council has now voted to expand in to the entire city. The mayor defended the curfew saying:

“The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution.”

How’s that for some doublespeak? In the same sentence he admits to infringement of constitutional rights AND says they haven’t violated the constitution.

Here’s another winner of a quote:

“As far as I’m concerned, at 3 o’clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law,” Councilman Eugene “Red” Johnson said. “Anyone out at 3 o’clock shouldn’t be out on the street, unless you’re going to the hospital.”

Maybe his nickname is “Red” for a reason. He’s obviously learned a lot about governing from the aforementioned Cold-War era communist governments.

The thing that scares me most is that this is exactly the type of thing that can easily spread through local governments across the nation. Unless this is strongly challenged, soon you’ll be seeing these tactics popping up all over.

All my devices are revolting against me.

My continuing saga of trying to install Ubuntu on my laptop:
Last night I did a final clean up of my hard drive, uninstalling a few more things and defragging a couple times. I’d done some research on getting Windows disc management to allow the partition to be shrunk more. It can be done but you have to uninstall/delete/move a bunch of system files, then defrag again and shrink the partition and then restore all the files you deleted. It sounded like a risky pain in the butt, so I decided just to install Ubuntu on the 17GB that Windows was graciously letting me have.

So I shrunk the Windows partition, popped in the Ubuntu CD (version 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon) which I’d burned like 6 months ago, and rebooted. Except the laptop booted into Windows. Every computer I’ve ever owned has defaulted to booting from the CD before the hard disc, but not this on one. So I had to reboot again so I could enter BIOS. But then I apparently didn’t hit the F2 key quick enough, so the laptop booted to Windows again. In frustration, I pressed the power button before Windows had started completely, and the computer went to sleep. When I pressed it again, it started back up but my screen stayed dark and I had no mouse or keyboard control. Press power button again. Nothing. Close the lid; wait; open again and Windows is back. Reboot one more time. Press the friggin’ F2 key and get into BIOS (half an hour after starting). Change boot preferences so it will boot from a CD. Exit BIOS and the Ubuntu disc boots. Yea!

Now I’m getting excited because the Ubuntu splash screen is up and the loading bar is running across my screen. Just waiting for the welcome screen to come up. And waiting…and waiting. OK, I know from when I tried to install Ubuntu on my old laptop that running an operating system from a CD can be slow, so I decide to play some Wii while I wait. I figure that whenever a new install screen comes up I’ll just pause the game and click the buttons and then go back to the game while it does its thing. So I start a game of golf and I play a couple holes, checking the laptop every now and then I notice that the loading bar on the splash screen has stopped moving. I figure it must be ready to load the welcome screen. I play a couple more holes of golf and it still hasn’t moved. I get down on the floor and put my ear to the computer. The CD is not spinning. I get no response from the keyboard or touch pad or power button. It is frozen. What to do now? Unplug the AC power and remove the battery. Manually remove CD. Put battery in and plug in power cord. Reboot AGAIN. Have spent an hour and accomplished nothing. Fling Ubuntu disc across room. Decide to try downloading the newer Ubuntu release and burning to a fresh CD. Start download. Should only take an hour and 20 minutes.

I’ll just play some more Wii while I wait. Grab Wiimote and turn back to the TV screen. Now the frickin’ Wii won’t do anything!!! Apparently the Wiimote rechargeable battery needs charged. The charger has been unplugged for like a month, so I plug it in and put the Wiimote on it. I could get out the other Wiimote, but I’d have to change the settings to make it work as player 1, and I don’t think I can deal with that right now. Turn off Wii. Write ridiculously long and boring post. Hope Wordpress doesn’t hose everything when I click “publish”.