Author: Karel Kerezman

  • Random Post-Weekend Entry Du-jour Thingie

    First, the weekend. I didn’t do anything. No, really. On Saturday I started and finished a scenario in Heroes of Might and Magic IV. Unless you count making a top high score as an accomplishment, I accomplished nothing Saturday.

    Sunday wasn’t much better. In the morning I started a brand new Assassin in Diablo II. By nightfall she was a level 21 in Act III and had points stored up in anticipation of hitting level 24 so she could start dumping points into her two main traps. Yes, I’m trying out a Trapper build. I’m astonished at how effective traps can be, especially compared to the cumbersome and somewhat buggy Martial Arts skills. (“What do you mean, I right-clicked on the monster and nothing happened… again? Argh! Stupid charge-release skills!”)

    And then it was Monday, and while two days of hardcore gaming hadn’t entirely cured the anxieties of eleven straight days of work, it had numbed me to the point where I didn’t resist heading to the office. This is probably a good thing. I didn’t accomplish anything at work today, either, except resolve two stupid email-related problems.

    You see, Lancelot has been replaced by Mass. (Yes, the box I had so much trouble with recently is now almost fully operational.) Today I intended to install Courier IMAP. I followed the instructions, installed the software, ran the start-up command as instructed… and could not log in from any machine at all. Argh!

    Almost five hours of starting, restarting, reinstalling, poking, prodding and cussing finally led me to try the other startup script provided. Voila! Gee, it was so effing easy…

    But wait, there’s more! After telling all of the other servers to start sending their little alerts and what-not to Mass, I realized that Mass was incapable of receiving email. “Huh?” It had worked before, and at first I was convinced that the firewall was screwing things up. No, of course not. See, had I thought at first to look at Qmail’s logs to see if it was detecting connection attempts, I’d have known that I’d broken one of the configuration files shortly after bringing email online. For the want of an ‘=’, the server was lost…

    And that, folks, is how a guy like me blows an perfectly good eight-hour workday straight to hell. Sad, wot?

    To highlight my utter sadness quotient, I was prodded into taking a 500-question purity test. (Look at Lil’s current NOTD; I’m too lazy to copy and paste linkage tonight.) My dear friends all scored in what we shall call the “lower half” of the percentile range. Not me, though.

    I’m 69% pure.

    On the one hand, “sixty-nine, dude!” On the other, how can my friends stand to be around someone so relatively square? It must be the power of contrast. That, or my stunning charm and personality.

    No, that wasn’t meant as a joke, so you can stop laughing now. Thanks.

    And now for more gaming fun. Alex and I spent a very enjoyable hour or two this evening playing Team Holomatch in Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. He and I put on our Johnny Bravo models and went around killing Gauron, Janeway, Seven of Nine and The Tick. Repeatedly. Much laughter ensued. Think of it as a father/son bonding experience. “Woo! You totally smacked that little fairy, didn’t you! Ah, that’s my boy. Hah! Did you see that shot? Damn, I’m good.”

    Anyway, tomorrow evening I’m to spend the evening with Lilith, Geoffrey and whoever else happens to be at their place. I’m looking forward to it, oh yes indeed. Talk about incentive for peeling myself out of bed in the morning!

    And that’s just about enough out of me for tonight. It’s amazing that I approached this entry expecting to only produce three or four paragraphs. This proves once again that I’m entirely too enamored of my own cleverness and the sound of my voice. Then again, if you weren’t just a bit impressed by it, you wouldn’t be reading this. If you don’t mind, I’ll go to bed smug now…

  • Past, Present, Future – Round Nine

    PAST: When we’re kids, we don’t know any better. This is true of so many things, but for our purposes this week we’re talking about movies we loved that make us cringe today. Tell us about one or two movies that you used to love that you probably shouldn’t have.

    PRESENT: As we reach adulthood we learn, among other things, that some bad movies are their own reward. Whether they’re a guilty pleasure or just an excuse to get friends together for a riffing session, what skeletons are lurking in your cinematic closet?

    FUTURE: You have the (substandard) equipment, you have the (miniscule) budget, you even have some poor schmucks who’ve been conned into being cast and crew. Lights! Camera! Action! But wait, what’s this deliberately schlocky movie about?

    As always, leave a comment with either your answers or a link thereto. And when you link back, do so to this URL which always directs visitors to the latest version: http://greyduck.net/ppf/

    (Yes, I know my answers aren’t in yet for last week. It’s been a long, long week in several ways, okay? I’ll take care of it this weekend, honest.)

  • Think of it as a strongly worded “unsubscribe” message.

    I’ve ranted about the Quantum Snap! Server NAS appliance before, with a certain regularity given its tendency to vapor-lock once per month. It happened again today, but this time with a twist. Shortly after the final rebuild and the return of logged-in users, it crashed again.

    But wait, there’s more! As I fumed about the utterly incomprehensible behaviour of the machine, what should appear in my office email but this:

    Special Offer on 960GB Snap Server 12000!

    Dear Karel,

    As our way of thanking you for being a loyal Snap ServerÆ customer, we would like to extend you a special offer. Purchase a 960GB Snap Server 12000 between now and May 30, 2003 for only $8,499 – a $3,500 savings over MSRP!* At less than a penny per megabyte, use a Snap Server 12000 to solve common storage problems.

    960GB Snap Server 12000

    Now Only $8,499! You Save $3,500!

    What incredible timing! It’s as if they knew I really needed a replacement unit! Here, therefore, is my joyful reply:

    Dear Quantum, or Snap Appliance, or whoever you are now,

    Your sales missive could not have arrived at a more appropriate time.

    If your “Snap Appliance” product hadn’t crashed on us twice in a row today, I might think about spending almost five figures to get an even bigger, better version. Sadly, the Snap! 4100 we bought almost a year ago decided that crashing mysteriously once per month isn’t enough and has graduated to higher levels of mayhem.

    Yes, I’ve spoken to tech support almost every time this happened. They don’t know what to make of it either. They offered to send a replacement, but there weren’t any in stock last month. Gee, what a shame. Sucks to be us, hey?

    Tell you what. Send me one of these $13k beasties ‘gratis’ and I’ll think about not badmouthing you to every peer and colleague I know. (Did I mention I work in the broadcast industry?) I’ll be sitting here watching my drive array rebuild again, holding my breath. You betcha. Do the words “you’ve lost my business, stop trying to get more” mean anything to you?

    Good luck, I get the feeling you’re going to need it. Consider this my idea of an “unsubscribe” message.

    I believe this is an exception to the adage about composing email while angry. What do you think?

  • Calling All Friends And Moviegoers

    Opening two weekends from now at Cinema 21 is Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (a.k.a. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door).

    So who’s going? To which showing(s)? Now’s the time to start planning, folks. This is a great excuse for a get-together among friends and fellow anime geeks. C’mon, you know you want to.

    In related news, we own the Spirited Away DVD… and Wendi’s not working this weekend. Do the words “movie night at the Kerezman house” mean anything to ya?

  • Stop the madness, please!

    via bears cave:

    It’s a long shot, but I believe everyone should do whatever they can to put a stop to this.

  • All kinds of rods I’ve heard of, but not this.

    I just received an email urging me to, and I quote:

    Grow a biger rod

    What, pray tell, is a “biger rod?”

    (Ah just lurves illiterate spammuhz, don’t y’all?)