Harry Connolly's Blog, page 183

Randomness for 6/23

1) Carnage on Hoth, the cake.

2) The rule, usually, is "Don't read the comments," yes? But look at this post about a delicious salad sandwich and then scroll down to the fourth comment by "Brownhornet". WTF? I don't understand that at all.

3) A trailer for all Academy Award Winning Movies. This is funny.

4) So is this: The angry police captain. Seen via the-isb.

5) White guys for rent.

6) Want to have a good-looking kid? Talk to the sperm (and egg, supposedly) donors at...

Kolchak, The Night Stalker: Ep 1 The Ripper

So! Now we move to the first of the actual TV episodes. The rumor is that Darren McGavin enjoyed working in TV movies and only agreed to tie himself to a television show with the promise that he would also be executive producer. Then, on the first day of shooting, he found another executive producer on the set.

According to the story I heard, he felt betrayed and acted as the executive producer anyway. Essentially, the set had two bosses. Things became so contentious that at the end of t...

Blow out those candles, quick!

I want to wish Joss Whedon a happy birthd– Oh, damn, it was cancelled before I could finish.

Things that suck

Originally, I was going to write about this somewhere private where I know I could talk it over with a few people I've known a while… sort of run through the issues here, but to hell with that. I'm just going to put this out as part of my public face.

Right now, a lot of rotten crap has been going on. What's the number one thing that sucks? Me.

My wife and son are still out of town dealing with the death of my mother-in-law. I'm here alone, feeling adrift without my family. I'm also...

Quote of the day

"Apple is best understood as the Singapore of technological ecosystems—smart, forward-looking, and every so often you get caned for chewing gum. "

— Patrick Nielsen Hayden

(posted after I realized that the Mac OS disables "Grab"–the screen capture utility–while "DVD Player" is running, because God forbid anyone want to post an image from a movie or TV show they're writing critically about)

Blow the vuvuzelas!!

We celebrate the restoration of my home internet connection. We shall not discuss the amount of time spent convincing Qwest that the problem was, in fact, on their end.

I'm logged in at the library

Skimming through my LJ and checking emails. I didn't make the trip to Best Buy to swap modems because guess what?? When I got home from work, the supposedly-broken modem was working!

I know. You're shocked.

Unfortunately, it wasn't working working. It took ten minutes and multiple tries before Thunderbird could download an email or newsgroup post. Yet another call to Qwest got me a conversation with someone who was willing to admit that they'd been having outages in my area for the...

Here is my sad face

I must go home to an internet-less apartment. It will be beer, books, and maybe a DVD.

God! How do people live this way?!?!

In which I reveal my ignorance, part two

Who knew jaywalking as a pedestrian norm was safer than a norm of crossing at the crosswalk?

I'll admit that it pings my skepticism meter (along the lines of "Volvos are dangerous because people feel safe in them and drive like idiots") but I still hmm over it.

Seen via this article about the punching incident earlier this week, when the Seattle police officer used "the punching technique" when a bystander objected to a jaywalking arrest.

Amazing coincidences!

So, Wednesday after work I discovered I couldn't connect to the internet at home. This was annoying, because I have writer-type crap that needs doing, but hey, it happens. I called Qwest tech support and after nearly an hour and a half I was told they'd traced the problem to my modem. I was entering the username and password correctly to connect to the ISP, but the modem wasn't retaining the info (or something). They could access my modem, but I couldn't get the internet.

Obviously the...