So yeah, I know what you're thinkin'...

No, seriously, I do. I'm not gonna follow that statement up with a comment, witty or otherwise, I just wanted to inform you kids that I'm completely psychic and can read your (collective) mind. Additionally, even though I have this impressive power, I choose to ignore what you're thinking because...Well...It's more fun that way. Anyhow, in lieu of anything interesting and/or (God forbid) funny, I figured I'd hit you kids with another of them conglomeration, 'recap-style' blog posts which nobody is so fond of. Ready? I know you is. As such, let's get on with it...

'Puter All Better Now...For The Most Part...
So big thanks goes to Mike, the Mac tech guy who helps out us folks at the agency. He was able to recover damn near all of my data and transfer it to a much larger (and newer) hard disk (which he cleverly named "Spawn of Cheese"). Sadly, transfers of this nature are not without problems (such as applications not able to find their vital files, fonts missing or not able to be located by Suitcase, etc.) but I was able to work that stuff out yesterday with some reinstalls and a phone call to Quark...Why is it that a company based just 60 miles north of where I'm sitting has East Indian folks answering the phones? "Stan Jones" my ass...Anyhow, it really is nice to have a capable Mac tech on call...Yay Mike! Also, yay for having my files back. I felt so lost without them...

Now THAT'S Odd Behavior...
So the other day, the wife and I were driving 'round town, specifically in the vicinity of south Nevada Ave. and I-25...Now, the way that one gets onto the interstate from there (which we were aimin' to do, by the by) is to take a left turn onto a kind of a nubbin of a street, go through another intersection (replete with traffic lights) and then up the ramp and on. As we were approaching the pre-nubbin intersection, we observed a black coupe (I think it may have been a Honda) cut it quite close making the aforementioned left turn a car or two in front of us. The wife made mention of the coupe's haste and then noticed that there was, in fact, a cop coming from the other direction. Before I could follow the coupe (making the turn in a significantly safer manner, just so's you know), this cop turned onto the nubbin in front of me. Seeing this, my wife implored the officer to "go get 'im," meaning, of course, to nail the driver of the coupe for his unsafe behavior. I interjected that the coupe had done nothing wrong and therefore couldn't really be "nailed." Anyhow, as I turned onto the nubbin, I see the cop, kind of in the turn lane and kind of not, to the left rear of the coupe which was waiting at the light in the "go straight" lane. As I approached the coupe, pulling in behind him in the straight lane, the cop appeared confused, making a move which inferred that he wished to cut in front of me, but yet maybe not. As I stopped, however, the cop got out of his cruiser and approached the coupe on foot. It was just then that the light changed and the coupe drove away. As I followed, passing the now on-foot police officer, I noted that the cop was shouting the word "HEY" at the coupe in a manner which suggested that he had something he wanted to say to the driver. I continued to observe the cop as best I could with my rearview while merging onto the interstate and saw that he returned to his cruiser and hesitantly pulled towards I-25, blocking on-ramp traffic while trying to decide whether whatever he had to tell the driver was worth a full blown, cherry top stop.

For what it's worth, the cop didn't follow the coupe or us or anyone onto the interstate. As I said before, quite possibly the strangest behavior I've ever seen exhibited by a police officer. I guess I was just lucky that I didn't hit him when he got out of his car as he was seemingly oblivious to anyone on the road but that damn little black coupe...

A Throw and Return Net Is Great...If You Can Hit It...
I'm sure you've heard the expression "can't hit the broadside of a barn." That expression, of course, refers to someone who is so damned inaccurate throwing anything that, even if set in front of the wide side of a large object and then instructed to hit said object, they would miss. Very much like the scene in Bull Durham where the Kevin Costner character tells Nuke Laloosh to hit him in the chest with the baseball and instead, Nuke hits a door several feet to the right. Well, long story short, that's how I throw. Completely wild, no consistency...Always have, probably always will...Now, this fact means that, as a first baseman, I'm pretty safe seeing as I may have to make only one or two throws every few games. This year, though, on our softball team, I've been moved to third base, a position that I not only haven't played since I was 12, but a position that I don't remember being any good at. As you may already have figured out, it's also a position which requires regular throwing of the ball in a reasonably accurate manner...Anyhow, the team made it through the Spring season alright (even though I didn't throw anyone out at first...Second, yes, first...no) and we're now into the summer season. To this point, I still don't have that whole "throw to first" thing worked out...Oh, don't get me wrong, I can get the ball toward first base in a rapid fashion, there's no problem with the strength of the throw...I just can't say where the throw is going to land which is, of course, the crux of the problem...Anyhow, to try and alleviate this looming deficiency in my game, about a week and a half ago, I purchased a throw and return net from WalMart and set it up in my backyard in the hopes that I can improve my throwing accuracy. To this point, I've made several dents in the frame of the thing and broken a couple boards in the fence that the net sits in front of, but...Well...I haven't hit the net all that much...Gosh, I feel sorry for the girl that plays first base for us...Sure hope she's comfortable chasing balls...

So that's about enough for now...As always, thanks for stopping by...You kids have a fine Tuesday now...

Labels: 'puter stuff, indignities, lame stories, sports

I know the answer to this question before I even ask it, but I still feel compelled to pose it to you...Have you ever had a week where shit just don't go right? Of course you have and, if for some strange reason you haven't, believe me...Your week's a'comin'. Anyhow, yeah, shit just ain't goin' right for me this week. well, now that I think of it, the week didn't start out bad, but this middle section that just passed sure sucked, I'll tell you that. Things really started to go South for me on Wednesday...There was a huge windstorm what blew through town, wreaking havoc in the way of downed trees, fucked up fences and power blinks. It was that last item I mentioned which hit us at work and, while I didn't initially think that I had lost much in the way of work (you know how it is, you haven't saved whatever you've been working on and *BAM*, out goes the power) but, as I waited for my work 'puter to restart following the 3rd or 4th power surge, I realized that I was more than a bit screwed. For you Mac people out there, I got the equivalent of what them goony Windows folks call "the Blue Screen of Death" in the dreaded "folder what bears a question mark." A blinking question mark, no less...Ten times as spooky, if by "spooky" I mean "repetitive and fucking frustrating."

Anyhow, I know that at least one of you is asking "so what does THAT mean?" Well, simply put, it means that my work computer can no longer recognize it's hard drive as a startup disk. This, kids, is quite bad. So bad, in fact, that a real-life equivalent would be if, say, you were to get struck by lightning...Not a LOT of lightning, just a little...MILDLY electrocuted but, ta-da, after the strike, your body can no longer find a connection to your brain...So yeah, my 'puter is in a coma. Long story short, even though I figured I hadn't lost much in the way of work, I was dead wrong...Everything that I had worked on that day was gone, along with...Well, along with a lot of stuff, including some text files which I use for the ol' blog which I hadn't got around to bringing home and placing on the ol' MacBook (which, of course, I'm using to type up this pathetic post). We do have a very capable Mac tech guy on call, so to speak, and he has done yeoman's work over the course of the last two days to salvage as much of my data as is possible. Initially, when he asked me what I needed most, I said "just my preferences and shortcuts and stuff." Of course, after a day of working on a foreign machine (because, hey, the ads have to go out, regardless of my individual troubles), I amended that statement the next time I saw him to "please get me everything! I need EVERYTHING!" Quite luckily, our backup had run successfully the night before the big FUBAR, so I was able to recover most of what I had been working on. Anyhow, yeah...I know it sounds like I'm a bitchy prima donna, but...Well...hey, I just want my computer back...Luckily, the tech guy told me that such things should happen soon...Before the weekend, even...

So that's why you kids get a whiny shit post instead of a phrickin' photoblog or...well...Anything that isn't a whiny shit post...Outside of the trouble at work, it's been a standard week without much to report. So much so, in fact, I just spent like...5 minutes sitting here on the floor in front of the coffee table TRYING LIKE HELL to come up with something to type. Dammit...

Anyhow, as always, thanks for stopping by...You kids have a fine weekend!

Labels: 'puter stuff, indignities, lame stories

Y'know, I guess that initially I didn't give much thought to the fact that if ANYONE ends up reading these entries that don't know me directly, they may be a little puzzled as to what the Hell "Son of Cheese" is in reference to...Were my parents made of brie or roquefort? Am I a member of a strange cult that still believes that the moon is made of green cheese and that once we eat the applesauce, we'll all ride the comet to salvation?..EAT THE APPLESAUCE, FOR LUNA'S SAKE!

No. It's not even as fanciful or, for that matter, as remotely interesting as that. It's the name of the hard drive on my computer at work. "Son of Cheese" is the name of my Mac G4.

I liked the scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where we are suddenly privy to the knowledge that the hero was named Henry all along and that Indiana had been the name of the family pet. We don't quite know why Henry Jr. decided to adopt the name of his pet contrary to keeping his birth name, but we can see that it IS unique and kinda manly. If I adopted the name of any pet I've had in my lifetime, I'd end up being called "Tippy" or "Rita." Neither of which will give me the appearance of a rugged adventurer. Being called "Son of cheese" has just happened through attrition.

When I started at the Gazette, I was working on a Power Mac 66mhz. for the time, it was pretty cool, I had been working on a very old Mac II at the screen printing house and, by comparison, this thing was a frickin' race car. eventually, the power supply went bad and I was gifted with a brand new Power Mac...something..It had a 250mhz processor I think. It was awesome, at the time. It was a bad mutha...I named it "John Shaft." I even rigged it to play the theme from shaft on startup. This led to it acquiring a worm virus. It kinda died. I had to start over, zeroing out the drive and reformatting.

Before we get too far, I should mention Ten Yun. Ted had been at the Gazette for a while when I got there and he was (still is, I'd imagine) a very capable designer who strived for bigger and better things. He was always the first to be called upon for special marketing projects, or design projects that needed a more "national" look. ted was also friendly and had a quick wit. everyone liked Ted.

Ted and I somehow got into a discussion about cheese one day. The details aren't important, I often will discuss, debate or argue about anything, regardless of whether or not I have any knowledge of the subject and sometimes, just to end the conversation, I'll go off on an inane tangent that seems completely absurd BECAUSE IT IS. By design. I remember telling Ted that Cheese was like life, the larger, more experienced cheese was old man or old woman cheese and it had to help the younger, less experienced cheese to maturity. Makes no sense, I know, it wasn't supposed to. Ted looked at me cockeyed and said "whetever, Old Man Cheese."

The name kinda stuck. He called me Old Man Cheese. Before it died, I named my power Mac 66 "Old Man cheese." I didn't think anymore about it for a long while.

After John Shaft met his untimely demise, while I was reformatting, I realized I had to come up with a name for my computer. I figured, if it really were the replacement for Old man Cheese, it could very well be the Son of Cheese. I bestowed this moniker on my new Mac upon reinstallation of system software and was off and running. I also had been set up with an email account that week, everyone in the building now had one. Oh how high-tech we had suddenly become!

y'know, the funny thing about email is that "name within a name" feature. Sure, you have your email address, I was dknight@gazette.com...but my display name was set to default to the name of my computer...You guessed it. "Son of Cheese." Every time I sent an email to ANYONE, it showed up in their in box, ready to read, sporting the name "Son of Cheese." Through no fault of my own, actually through my own ignorance, I came to be known as "Son of Cheese." also 'dickweed,' but that's another story.

When I left the gazette and came to the ad agency I'm at now, I was working on a 9500 named "Jerry." I gave it a worm so I could reformat and start over as Son of Cheese. Eventually we upgraded to G4 macs and I christened my new work station "Son of Cheese." The name "Son of Cheese" appears on the rip while my print jobs are ripping, Son of Cheese appears on the backup log and on the network. And soon, Son of Cheese will be the name of a shiny new G5...Son of Cheese will live on, even though I barely give any thought to it's origin these days. It just IS. It's accepted as a part of daily life here. And it's the first name that popped into my head when I decided to start a blog.

So there's that.

postscript: Son of Cheese was given a shiny new monitor yesterday. It's HUGE! we all have two monitors now. It's freakishly modern. I feel sooooo cool.

Labels: 'puter stuff, lame stories, me roots