I took the light rail again today. I should do it more often. It's always an adventure. A man was sleeping across the aisle from me when I boarded. A few stops later, he woke up, dazed and confused. He looked around, and then said "What the fuck." And then he said "What the fuck." And then he said (are you surprised?) "What the fuck."

Seriously, that was all he said. Repeatedly. What the fuck, how about some variety? Maybe "Shit, how did I end up down here!" Or "Damn, no more tequila for me." Nope, just "what the fuck" over and over again.

A couple of signs on the train caught my eye though:





On the left, a list of things I can't do, including eating and drinking. On the right, a plea, recycle things you've brought on the train, including beverage cups and soda cans.

Uhm, how's that work? I can't eat or drink on the train, but if I am eating or drinking, I should recycle my waste. Yeah, ok, got it.

Fly Away

I popped in to a Peet's Coffee this morning. It's not a mistake I'll be making again in the future. Steaming vanilla soy latte in hand, I found a seat by a window so I could watch the world stroll by, but instead of seeing the world, I saw countless generations of dead flies:



Yum. Pity, the coffee was good.

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!

Ethel told me that the way to tell whether someone in Europe is an American tourist is by their footwear - they're the ones wearing white sneakers. I decided I didn't want to look like an American anymore, not until after the next election anyway, so I bought a new pair of shoes.

I looked long and hard, and found a really cool pair. They're totally stylin' (thanks Urban Dictionary). And, get this, they're environmentally friendly. The soles are even made from old tires! It was like Hanukah Chanukah חנוכה Hanukkah all over again this morning when the UPS man showed up.

Merry Christmas Willy

I wasn't always a crazy cat lady. Willy and her siblings started it. Here's a shot of Willy I took earlier today:


Willy's mother (Mrs. Weber) was living under the grill in our backyard (get it? that's where the name comes from). We started feeding her so she would stop crapping in our flowers. The theory was that a cat won't crap where it eats. The theory held water. What the theory doesn't tell you is that a happy, well fed cat will give birth to a littler of adorable kittens.

In Mrs. Weber's case, the kittens were Ping, Pong, Willy and Ling Ling. Like most (all?) kittens, they were adorable. We used to spend hours watching them splayed out in the backyard, like lions on a savanna (ok, not hours, probably only minutes), or fighting over who gets to be in the hammock (Ling Ling always won).

After we moved, I would go back and feed them, but eventually new people moved in. It's nice to know that someone is taking care of the cats (though Willy looks like she could use a brushing :)

Frosty the Snowman

I was watching Frosty last night and saw a couple of things worth noting:

1. Even back in 1969 when the cartoon was made, people were ignoring global warming. You can tell because Frosty says that the North Pole is the only place he can go to avoid melting. We all know (most of us anyway, hint hint) that even the North Pole isn't immune to its effects. Frosty's destined to be a cloud of Christmas steam.
   
   
2. The song goes:Publish Post

   ...
   He led them down the streets of town
   Right to the traffic cop.
   And he only paused a moment when
   He heard him holler "Stop!"
   ...
   

   There you have it, the origin of society's belief that traffic laws don't need to be obeyed.

Maybe it's time for a newer, better Frosty. One who is not ignorant of the world around him, or the law. And while we're redoing him, let's lose the corn cob pipe, and maybe go with "two eyes made out of tofu"?

FCC U L8R

Doh! I called the FCC to follow up on the complaint I filed against Comcast. Boy, was that fun. After lots of trial and error in their phone system, my call was answered by a woman who probably shouldn't have been answering phones.

Me: I'm following up on a complaint I filed last month
Her: When did you file it? We ask people to wait 45 days
Me: Six weeks ago, 42 days, close enough, no?
Her: What's the reference number?
Me: [reads the reference number]
Her: Hold on a sec.. Let me get to the right screen.. Ok, what is it?
Me: [reads the reference number slowly]
Her: [repeats the first digit] ... ok.
Me: Arg! [reads the rest of the digits slowly]
Her: Ok, what's the problem?
Me: Comcast remove channels and failed to give me the necessary notice?
Her: They don't have to give you notice
Me: Sure they do, your web page says so
Her: I have a note here that says they don't.
Me: Where is it on your web site? I believe what I read online sooner than a post-it note on your desk.
Her: Where online did you see it?
Me: The FCC web site
Her: Where?
Me: [it took three tries to spell out an eight digit number, what will a URL be like!] Let me look it up
Her: ok.
Me: I found it - it's rule number 76.1603.
Her: Let me look it up [lots of muttering, apparent inability to "numerical order"]. Ok, I found it.
Her: This doesn't apply in your situation
Me: Why not - it says they can't change the lineup without 30 days written notice and they did just that.
Her: It doesn't. They don't have to give you notice
Me: It seems to spell it out pretty clearly?
Her: Let me find someone who can explain it better
Me: [better? that would imply you've explained it!]

After a brief pause, a new person came on the phone who first attempted to convince me that Comcast might have notified me in writing via some mechanism other than writing, possily something broadcast on one of their channels. I questioned whether anyone at the FCC, in looking into my complaint had contacted Comcast to see if that was in fact the case.

Rather than answer (which I think means "we didn't look into it"), she pointed me to 76.309 which states pretty clearly (it's a government document, so clarity isn't a goal) that it is up to my local cable franchise authority (city government) to enforce this issue.

I explained that I was aware of that and had already spoken with them but they were not able to help and that another FCC person I spoke with said I should file my complaint with them and make a note that the local government was not able to do anything.

She explained that this other FCC person was wrong, that they were not able to help me (which was, I've since learned, a crock of shit because there are instances where the FCC will act against a cable provider - DA-061587 is a perfect example) - I'm just not important enough.

So in this matter, I've talked with three government officials (FCC), and two of them told me completely incorrect information, and one was correct but left out relevant pieces of information. That's my tax dollars at work. I'd like my money back now please.

Mis-Steaks have been made

Sheesh, does it end.. The cafeteria today featured some sort of Philly Cheesesteak derivative. Instead of thinly sliced bits of meat, they used flank steak, thickly sliced, with the grain. People, please. If you slice it with the grain, then you force me to attempt to bite through it against the grain. That's just not pretty. Slice it against the grain. Here's a resource that explains it all.

I brought it to the attention of the manager, expecting to be telling him something he didn't already know. I was wrong. He knew! But apparently he hadn't shared this tidbit of info with the guy who had the knife. Perhaps now he will. Right, there will be a knifing later and it will be my fault.

The funny thing is, I've fallen for this ruse before, countless times. The steak "looks" good, but upon closer look (i.e. after it's been paid for when it's on your plate), it's apparent that it's sliced the wrong way and you're left with deciding - do I just tough it out and hope I can bite through it, or do I use a knife and fork?

Every time I've gone with the "bite through it," I ended up with a slab of meat dangling from my mouth slapping against my chin. Yum.

Nothing is certain, but death

I killed a man yesterday on my way to work. We were having a typical winter storm - it was cold and raining. I pulled up to a traffic light at a four-way intersection and stopped (my light was red). When it turned green, I started to go.

He came from the left, he decided he could make the light, even though it was red long before he had gotten to the intersection. He must have been in a hurry to get somewhere. When he saw me pulling into the intersection, he panicked, hit his brakes and cut his wheel hard to the left to avoid me. He avoided me, but rolled his car a bunch of times. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Seat belts and airbags can only do so much. I guess he's not going to get to wherever he was in such a hurry to go.

That's how it played out in my mind anyway. But it didn't quite happen that way. When my light turned green I started to go, but I saw him coming out of the corner of my eye and knew he wasn't going to stop for his light - it wasn't the right shade of red as my father would say. So I stopped instead and he sailed through the intersection, off to wherever he was in such a hurry to get to.

He lived, that time. But he might not be so lucky next time.

Fly, be free

I took a quick trip to visit family last weekend. It was mostly uneventful (I'm speaking only of the flights), but a couple of things stick in my mind...

1. United Airlines lady - what's your problem? At 7:00AM, I'm really not in the mood to be berated. I arrived at 7:01 for a 7:40 flight; That's 40 minutes before the flight in my book. You didn't hear me bitching about the flight leaving an hour late, did you? Hmmm, wouldn't that mean I arrived 1:40 before the flight?
   
   You need to lighten up a little, it's the holiday season - you know, peace on earth, good will toward man. Maybe a better career for you would be prison guard? And, no, you weren't imagining things - the lady who checked me in and I were laughing about you.
   
   Update: United Lady Bitch - I was reading a United ticket jacket yesterday and noticed this:
   
   It says 30 minutes not 40 minutes. You're not supposed to just make shit up, sheesh! Now you're United Lady Lying Bitch.
   


2. To the man in seat 9C, United flight 51, Dec 17, 2007. You're gross. It's just that simple.
   
   Why would you have possibly thought it was ok to clip your nails at your seat and shoot nail bits about the cabin? It might be back home in the Ozarks, but it's not in civilization. It's just plain gross.
   

On that note, here's something I've been wondering about.. While a plane is taxiing after having landed, you can now pull out your cell phone (if you can do so without getting out of your seat, wink wink) and call your parole officer or whomever. Why is it that I can't also pull out my MP3 player and start listening to music? Is a cell phone somehow special?

I drink, I get drunk, I run for president.

Sorry, no, I'm not buying it.

Yesterday the president came clean about his past drinking problems. I don't care. I don't care because I've become a cynic, and I see right through his ruse. He didn't bring his past problems into the public eye because he thought we should know about them, he did it in the hope that we would forget all of the crap he's gotten us into. Magicians call it slight of hand. Keep the audience distracted so they don't notice what's really going on.

I'm sorry, it's not going to work. Not for me, nor for most of the people around the world. Your legacy is not going to be "he was a drinker who found God and bettered himself." Your legacy is going to be one of death and destruction.

When the people of the world look upon your presidency, they will not see the good you've done (because it is non-existent), they will see the dead and the maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They will see the destruction and poverty that still haunt us (Hurricane Katrina - "heck of a job Brownie").

They will see you, standing before them, speaking of Iran and its dismantled nucular [sic] weapons program as if it still existed in much the same way as you spoke of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction, a threat to our way of life. Bah, what threat? The only threat to our way of life is you. When you go to sleep at night, do you think about the men and women at home and abroad who gave their lives and limbs to fight in your meaningless wars, because you wanted to make a name for yourself? To see revenge against Saddam on your father's behalf?

Mr. President, if you would like to leave a legacy behind, apologize. Go before the nation and admit you were wrong. Admit there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Admit that not only is torture wrong, but that we were, in fact, torturing people, at Guantanamo, at Abu Ghraib, and at the various secret prisons scattered about Europe. Show the nations of the world that they shouldn't give up on America. Give your successor something to work with.

You say tomato...

Ok, it's true. I am always ragging on the food at the cafeteria, but it's never without good reason. My tuna melt the other day didn't have any melt (cheese). When I commented on it, the grill guy gave me a "what's wrong, that's how it's supposed to be" look. "Yellow, white, or none?" are the typical cheese choices.

The salad bar at the cafeteria had this to offer today:


I can understand not finding the most flavorful tomatoes; it is winter afterall. And I'm all for eating locally grown produce, and not trucking fruits and vegetables all over the country, but this poor tomato looks like the vegetable (ok, tomatoes are fruits) equivalent of "robbing the cradle."

Barack Oh No! bama

Barack, tell me it's not true. Tell me I misheard you. I didn't really hear you use a double negative when you and Oprah were in South Carolina the other day, did I? You didn't really say "didn't do nothing," did you?

Was it an honest mistake? Did you misspeak? You were under lots of pressure? I can understand that. Tell me it wasn't an attempt to fit in, to sound like one of the locals! Like Hillary in Selma? I thought you were different.

Sigh.. Rudy's looking better and better.. NOT!

Crazy Driver, part II

I don't get it. What's with you people? All I want to do is walk to the Farmers Market, buy some things, and walk home. Why do you stupid drivers insist on doing stupid things in front of me? Can't you wait til I'm gone? No, apparently not. You do your stupid things, forcing me to take your picture and discuss what you did wrong with you. And in front of Ethel, sheesh.


Yesterday it was this lady. She turned the wrong way onto a one way street (a clearly marked one way street) so she could sneak into a parking lot that she would have otherwise had to go a half mile out of her way to get into. Well, that certainly justifies your deviation from the law. You saved a half mile, which would be, uhm, let's assume you get 30 miles per gallon (though the way you drive, maybe that's wrong?), 1/60 of a gallon, or 5 cents? How about if I give you the nickel and you drive in the same dirction as everyone else next time?

I should be thankful that you didn't call me an asshole like last week's winner did, huh?

The way to San José

The light rail in San José (Valley Transit Authority - VTA) has never been particularly profitable. I think bumped into a poorly implemented cost-saving effort..

I was taking the Light Rail from downtown Campbell to downtown San José last night, and wanted to check the schedule online. My plan was to take the train northbound, from the Winchester station to the recently renovated Convention Center downtown. Seems simple enough. Except for some reason, their web site didn't list any northbound trains.

This problem seems to have been fixed - perhaps it was a north versus south thing - maybe a localized reenactment of the Civil War?

To confuse matters more (I was tired, many things were confusing), when I got on a train at the Winchester station, here's what the route map looked like:



In striking contrast, here's what the map looks like on the VTA site now:



See the difference? I was on the Campbell line, and yet, there was none shown on the map. If you look really closely, you can see the date on the map (my version, not theirs) - it's June 2004. That explains it. The line is only two years old, and to save money, VTA decided not to update the maps.

Let's get digital!

I broke down. I'm embarrassed to say it, but I gave in and signed up for digital TV from Comcast (aka "the man"). I think I did it because I wanted the Hallmark channel back, or maybe I did it because I saw an ad for a Tivo HD ($249 at Frys) which I decided I couldn't live without (it's replacing my SnapStream BeyondTV and Hauppauge MediaMVP)

It doesn't matter why, but I did it. After many calls to Comcast, I was happy that I could get a decent plan that had the things I wanted (basic digital cable, with local channels in HD), and, most important, no cable box

The appointment was set for between noon and 4pm on Tuesday; Comcast even called to make sure someone would be home. they called three times in fact. They called on Saturday. Then they called at 11:30am on Tuesday and left a message. I called them back and confirmed. They called again at 1pm. Sheesh, you people worry too much.

CableBoy showed up at 2:30pm and we discussed his mission - install an M- CableCard™ in the Tivo, and an S- CableCard™ in my TV. Seemed straightforward to me, and to the person I scheduled the appointment with who was fluent in CableCard™-speak. But not so with CableBoy.

He had never seen a TivoHD, so he didn't believe that it could operate both digital tuners with a single M- CableCard™. I showed him the Tivo documentation. Nope, not a believer. I told him the "M" meant multi-stream. Nothing still. So he called his colleague - characterized as the Tivo HD "Subject Matter Expert." The SME confirmed what I said, but pointed out that I couldn't get OnDemand nor Pay-Per-View (BFD).

Alas, CableBoy only had S-cards with him (he refered to them as "the green ones"), no M-cards ("the pink ones"). SME pointed out that there were two slots in my Tivo, so two S-cards would work fine. Yes, they would, but, as I pointed out, I'd then be paying for a third card; at $1.79/month, it adds up, so CableBoy got a timeout and sat in his truck until a colleague with "the pink ones" arrived.

Installation started with CableBoy testing the cable that went from my surge protector to the TV/Tivo (through a splitter). He decided, I guess, that he didn't like what he saw, because he installed his own splitter, bypassing my surge protector completely.

The rest of the install was fine, apart from a mistyped ID somewhere that initially prevented the M-card from pairing. CableBoy tested the encrypted channels on the Tivo, they worked fine. I asked him to test the ones on the TV, he said "they won't work." Why, I asked (like a two year old?). He said "because the TV needs a cable box for that." Err, isn't that why we put a CableCard™ in there? He gave in and tuned the TV to channel 702, and magically it worked.

As he was packing up to leave, I asked him about the splitter he had installed. He said it was necessary. I pointed out that it now bypassed my surge protector. He said that wasn't a problem, the cable was grounded outside (didn't inspire confidence). I asked what was wrong with my surge protector. He said "you can't have anything between the cable and our device (the CableCard™).

I was going to point out that a mere 8 feet below him, in the white box on the garage wall was a big freaking amplifier that was effectively sitting between "the cable" and his device, but thought that would make him cry, so I let him off easy - Merry Christmas CableBoy.

Safe car, unsafe driver

This guy was too funny. In the distance, you can see a traffic light at an intersection. This guy was coming from the left, planning on turning on the road he's now parked on.

The light was red, so rather than stopping at the light and then turning right on red (or the more traditional, brief pause at the light and then turning without looking), he just cut through the parking lot; in one driveway and out the other.

But then he pulled over and parked, in front of the garage door and another exit from the same parking lot. Duh! Idiot. Right, it's a Volvo, that's Swedish for "The rules don't apply to me."

I suggested he move his car to avoid getting a ticket (I was going to call the police :), he said "no one is going to use this driveway." Correct, no one is going to use it because your car is blocking it.

Rather than call the police right away, I took his picture - demonstrating he's a more mature person, he didn't chase after me and beat the crap out of me; instead he just called me an asshole, and then got in his car and moved it :)