Bon Voyage et Bonnes Nouvelles

Christmas was great here in Laura & John Land. We got to see Cillic and Heathen for a bit on Saturday and in the exchange of gifts, I got my new nickname... Bumpy. Huh? Yep. Apparently Heather's handwriting is ambigramic...

Carl handed me a little package and I looked at Heather and said "Bumpy?" John, Carl and Heather looked at me like "Buh?" So I showed them. Too funny.

John scanned the tissue paper and flipped the image on top of itself so we could show the world:


Inside was a lovely beaded bracelet that Heather made.

Saturday night we had a nice dinner & game night at another friend's place. They gave us a talking Jesus action figure with the Kung-Fu grip - so of course as soon as we got home we gave him R. Lee Ermey's sword from the Full Metal Jacket doll and took pictures of him perched in a giant vagina. I mean, what else would you do with it?
It would be fun to try and balance him on a My Little Pony and have it be the coming of the Queer Apocolypse or a Pleo Dinosaur and re-enact a history lesson...

We did Christmas Eve at my parents house and Christmas day at my Aunt's house. We got all kinds of things from my family even though we had all agreed to "take it easy" this year. Uh-huh.

I got a ton of bath & body stuff - a Lush gift box full of yummy smelly stuff and some bath & body works. My parents got me a Gift that Gives More from the Click to Give coalition sites (linked to the left) to send two girls to school in Afghanistan for a year. John got 8 tons of cookies and an Evil Monkey and about a billion t-shirts. That's OK though because he wears them all the time. His favorite was a Threadless shirt entitled "Yes You Are."

We have all our crap packed for the trip. Rather than pack light, which we normally do, we're bringing one suitcase a piece so that we have room for stuff to bring back with us.

I finally heard back from Hannah and I have an appointment for January 3rd to finally finish my back piece (applause). I'll be a bit jet lagged, but that's ok.

Bon Année
Bumpy

PS. My heart goes out to all of Pakistan today. Truly a tragedy brought on by ideological cowards and narrow minded goons.

Merry F*n Christmas...

Unless something truly exciting or interesting happens, I likely won't post until after Christmas... So Happy Holidays to all those saying Happy Birthday to Jesus or celebrating the solstice or just reveling that you get time off work for nothing...



I'll leave you with movies I want to see in the coming weeks:

Charlie Wilson's War: A dramatic, yet comical look at the way the US dealt with Soviet-occupied Afghanistan (and it's eventual tragic outcome 12 years later)

The Kite Runner: A drama based on the friendship of two Afghan boys before, during, and after the Taliban

Sweeny Todd: It's Tim Burton, it's gotta be good...

Stuff

The gauntlet of Christmas is approaching. Eeek.

We leave for Paris a week from Friday. Double Eeek.

Annie will be vacationing with my parents and a friend of mine who lives in the 'hood will be popping in on the kitties once or twice while we're gone.

We're leaving our time there pretty open. We did find one cool place we're going to go called La Cantada II. It's an Absinthe/Punk bar. We'd like to spend New Years Eve there, but it's so far away from the Champs Elysees where the party & fireworks are that we may just go there a different night and see what happens.

We're also planning on going to the Musee D'Orsay and the National Piccasso Museum and probably are going to skip the Louvre. It's just too big and it gives us a reason to return when the weather is warmer.

We still don't have dinner plans for NYE yet. We've decided to leave that up to fate. I had tried to make reservations at one place, but it turned out they were having a prix fixe menu with not a whole lot either of us would or could eat. So we're going to have the hotel find a reservation for us or just wander. Even if it's just a casual dinner in a neighborhood cafe - I could care less.

I got the second draft of my thesis back from my one committee member who will be on leave in Spring. She had one minor change in one paragraph. So now I just have to wait for feedback from the other committee member, who I also suspect will be my toughest reader. She's going to read it over break and get back to me in January.

I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Movie Review: I am Legend

You must see this movie. Even if you don't like "apocalyptic zombie movies." All of you, my readers, are required to see this.

It's based on a 1950s novella and this is the second time it's been brought to film. I'll admit I haven't read the book or seen Omega Man, so I can't compare this with previous versions. But on it's own, this is a fantastic movie.

Will Smith is Robert Neville, an Army doctor and, for all he knows, the last human to survive a viral plague brought on by a genetically enhanced virus initially thought to cure cancer. The plague killed off most people and left most of the survivors as mutated zombie-like creatures that are sort of a cross between the what I imagine the "Slow Mutants" in the Gunslinger to look like and vampires from 30 Days of Night with the speed and ferocity of the blood thirsty rabid beasts in 28 Days/Weeks later. They can't come out in the sunlight, they're super aggressive, and they're fast.

These "Dark Seekers" fed on most anyone who managed to escape the plague - which is both airborne and spread by contact. Basically, Neville, who by mere chance is immune, was the only person to both avoid infection and, through careful planning and attention to detail (maybe his Army training heled too) avoid being eaten.

Neville and his dog, Sam, roam the streets in search of survivors (and test subjects for the vaccine he's still hoping to find). He's fixed up his house with steel shutters and generators and collects canned goods from various houses and stores. The first part of the movie is their daily routine, which really gets you acclimated to the sense of desertion and loneliness. There's a shop he goes to to "rent" movies and he's dressed up Mannequins as people that he talks to - apparently to try and get some sense of normalcy. But his only real friend is Sam.

It's clear at one point in the movie that, although Neville is still working on a cure, that he doesn't really believe (or maybe he doesn't want to believe) that there's anybody left it can actually help.

There are some extremely tense edge-of-your-seat moments in this story - as sunset approaches and he has to seek shelter. I will admit that this movie made it on the very short list of movies that actually made me cry.

The only criticism I have is that I wish the producers relied less on CGI with the "dark seekers." Traditional zombie makeup with real people (enhanced with special effects to get some of the details right) would have looked so much better.

Interesting quiz

I was reading the recent issue of Time Out Chicago on the train. The article is about the diversity of belief in Chicago and people answering questions about different aspects of their faith. and a friend of mine noticed that there was a quiz in the online version of the story.

Take the quiz here... it's pretty interesting (and it's more substantive than most online quizzes).

I'm curious to know if there's anyone out there (there probably is) whose answers to the questions after critical reflection differs from what they identify as. For example, someone who thinks themselves Catholic because that's how they were raised but who appears to have beliefs more in alignment with Unitarianism or something.

My results were pretty predictable:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100 %)
2. Secular Humanism (97 %)
3. Neo-Pagan (95 %)
4. New Age (89 %)
5. Liberal Quakers (89 %)
6. Mainline - Liberal Christian Protestants (88 %)
7. Theravada Buddhism (79 %)
8. Reform Judaism (79 %)
9. Non-theist (76 %)
10. New Thought (75 %)
11. Mahayana Buddhism (67 %)
12. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (64 %)
13. Scientology (64 %)
14. Taoism (60 %)
15. Bahai (52 %)
16. Sikhism (50 %)
17. Orthodox Judaism (44 %)
18. Mainline - Conservative Christian Protestant (40 %)
19. Islam (39 %)
20. Orthodox Quaker (39 %)
21. Jainism (36 %)
22. Hinduism (31 %)
23. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (29 %)
24. Eastern Orthodox (26 %)
25. Roman Catholic (26 %)
26. Seventh Day Adventist (21 %)
27. Jehovah's Witness (15 %)


Here's John's Results. As he said, he's only 24% wackadoodle (scientologist)...
1. Secular Humanism (100 %)
2. Unitarian Universalism (93 %)
3. Non-theist (84 %)
4. Liberal Quakers (71 %)
5. Theravada Buddhism (70 %)
6. Neo-Pagan (63 %)
7. Mainline - Liberal Christian Protestants (59 %)
8. Taoism (51 %)
9. Reform Judaism (43 %)
10. New Age (42 %)
11. Orthodox Quaker (33 %)
12. Bahai (31 %)
13. Sikhism (31 %)
14. Mahayana Buddhism (30 %)
15. New Thought (27 %)
16. Mainline - Conservative Christian Protestant (26 %)
17. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (24 %)
18. Scientology (24 %)
19. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (21 %)
20. Seventh Day Adventist (18 %)
21. Eastern Orthodox (16 %)
22. Islam (16 %)
23. Jainism (16 %)
24. Orthodox Judaism (16 %)
25. Roman Catholic (16 %)
26. Hinduism (6 %)
27. Jehovah's Witness (0 %)

Something to think about

My friend Jason sent me this and was stunned. I've read the original reports from the 1950s experiments referenced in the video and the results don't surprise me at all. I was a psych major after all.

Then, of course, there's the women's studies & sociological research that shows time and time again that features considered to be "beautiful" are typical of whites - small noses, lighter skin, less coarse hair.

This is really quite sad considering it's 2007 now. Just shows how deeply ingrained some of these ideas are and how the subtle messages that children get really do affect attitudes about themselves and others around them... Discuss...

Here's a news report about the film:

and the film itself:

Pandora's box of Christmas Hell

According to Jason, I opened Pandora's box.

My student at work asked me if I'd ever heard "Christmas Shoes" or seen the video. I have never heard of it before and he was aghast. So he loaded up Youtube and I thought I had seen the worst Christmas song/music video ever. It is as if Oprah, Lifetime network, After School Specials, Ned Flanders and Bob Geldof (who brought us the lyrical gems "there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas" and "Tonight thank God it's them instead of you") got together to whip up some holiday fun with a message.

I bring you Christmas Shoes:



But wait. There's more. I sent this to a few people who I thought would appreciate the awfulness of this whole charade. What I got in return were several more links to several more, increasingly worse Christmas music videos. I think that artists can release all manner of schlock and be guaranteed that people will buy it if they simply call it a "Christmas album". Cuz you know if it's Christmas, it's got to be good.

Then Jason, in retaliation sent BoyoyBoy, some boyband 'yo MTV raps ripoff. It doesn't help that one guy looks like Squiggy dressed as Bono and another looks like Screech:


Then Heather got into the mix, sending probably the worst Eurotrash outfit I've ever seen. To quote Jason: "I don’t know what I like more… the outfits, the hair, those dynamite dance moves or the beautiful notes coming off his xylophone."



Then Jason played the Ace up his sleeve with Leslie and the Lies "Gem Sweater". Now, for those who don't know, Leslie is actually pretty big with the feminist and gay activist groups because she is a purposeful parody of women and fashion. (Click the photo to play)



Then finally... the fucking Christmas Macarena... seriously?




Which one is your "favorite"??

So... do you feel in the Christmas spirit yet? Oh, I forgot our friends the Jews. One of my all time favorites, from Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics...

The must have for Windows Based Home Networks

So over the last year or so - I've been watching the progress of an interesting product from Microsoft - the Windows Home Server operating system. What is it? It's basically dumbed down Windows 2003 Server so that it can be administered by those who have multiple Windows boxes but don't know what patch cable is, never used the command prompt, or are just dangerous enough to think they know what they're doing. There's three major components that should interest these folks. The mindless backup, the easiest sharing with redundancy ever, and remoting into your systems.

For now, it doesn't support 64 bit Windows clients - and that does suck - but you can use the server to store your backups if you wish. Microsoft has said it's working on it and should be out after the new year - so it's not a terrible problem that will never be solved. The BETA actually did support it - but the Win64 team changed something on Vista and broke it.


So to setup the backups, all you have to do is install the console application on each box you want to back up. It will automatically configure the server to backup that machine between 12am and 6am. It is that simple, just leave the box on, and it will be backed up. It will automatically manage the backups, and it does daily (incremental) , weekly (full), and monthly(full) with automatic pruning of each if it needs the space, or as you set. The beauty of the backup is that it only keeps one copy of a file - even across machines - so this really saves on space! The backups can be accessed via any of the clients, or if you lost the whole enchilada - by a boot disc that is provided.

Now, for a server with multiple drives, it has the ability to duplicate the shares on it automatically, but it must be turned on. But it can't get easier than that. All Laura has to do is copy her files to her share, and they're automatically copied so that if one drive fails, there's another copy ready to go. And with the backups, she can't lose. It also has a share named "music" that is on by default, and it is seen by multiple devices here as a media center PC. So all the music we have can be played from those devices on my network. I have even installed a hack that let's me stream my library to my phone.

For remoting in, you get a free domain extension at homeserver.com - so it may be https://johnandlaura.homeserver.com. ( please if the example exists, don't try to hack it because it's not my box!!!) I already have Dynamic DNS from TZO, and while it took some fiddling with the settings - I was able to use my domain I've had forever for home use. So to remote in you go to that site you'll get a login screen that will allow you to either remote control using RDP to any of your boxes with the console running on it or to browse the shares. This means that if Laura wants to edit a file at work, she can do so either directly on her box, or get it from the share and post it back when she is done with it.

Now you can get the OEM software from NewEgg for ~$170, but I got the HP EX470. The rest of this will be specific to the 470 and what it's features are. So if you've got an old box and want to roll your own - it's easy too, one of my buddies has just done so, but it paid for itself in backups alone, plus I don't have to pay gotomypc anymore. The ROI is very quick for me, and should be for you too.

The 470 has a couple of nice features. The ease of expanding your server space is very nice. It has three usable drive bays ( there's four, but the first one is taken by the OS (500GB) ). Each bay has a drive sled that you just lift a handle to remove. The sleds have pins that hold the drive in place, the left are immobile, but the right have some flex to them. This allows you to put the drives in with tools. The drives are all hot-swappable, but you must add and remove the drives from the console in order for them to be used as storage. When you remove the drive from the console, it will attempt to copy the data off to the other drives in the system before dismounting it. Really slick - because the drives you mount are added as if you had an on the fly JBOD array. This means that the storage is added to the shares, without having to worry about drive letters, mappings and so on. The space is just there for your shares.

There is a web application to share photos - it's good, but a strange thing is that you can't access the "photos" share directly from the app! This means that you must upload from the share from the web - not very efficient! But what is nice is that you can create visitor profiles that you can then send to people so that they may see your albums. Another funny bit is that it's database is Postgre - I guess this is because you can't install SQL Express or the Desktop Engine on Windows 2003.

The HP also comes with a rebranded version of the Firefly Media Server project to allow you to share iTunes libraries across the network. If user A downloads a song or creates a playlist, then it is copied to the "music" share and all the other users can see it as a song in a special shared library based off of the HP. So if you have a bunch of different iTunes libraries - this is good - but this isn't very good for if you want to really have a central iTunes that everyone adds to - as you can not actually use the song in your iTunes - just play it off the network...

If you plan on using the web aspects of the box, then for Antivirus there's really only one choice at this time - and that's Avast, which has a BETA out that is specifically built for WHS. I also recommend that you get Raxco's PerfectDisk for WHS - because the drives get fragmented very quickly because of the constant balancing of drive usage that occurs with WHS.

It's an awesome OS that Microsoft should be proud of. It is worth the cost of the backups it performs ALONE, and since it paid for itself by allowing me to drop gotomypc's 4 PC pro plan - it really was a no-brainer. When they add 64 bit support - it will be that much more usable for me.