thoughts from an empty head

Cascading Tech Fail

Steven Perez — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:36:15 +0000

Gather ’round, children, and let me tell you a tale of tech fail.

I am one half of a small podcast – Random Time Lords – and my partner Amber Spence and I had a date with a slightly larger podcast – the Ffundercats – last night. At the same time, I was busy moving myself into a nice little apartment, complete with everything a growing boy needs – except for a working internet connection.

And that’s when I found the Free Public Wi-Fi in my computer’s network connections. Mind you, I had no idea that San Antonio even had free wi-fi in the city (I had previously gone to Borders when I needed a wi-fi connection), but I was in no position to complain, as Time Warner wasn’t slated to show up and install my internet connection until the following week, and the best I could in the interim was something I was loathe to do: slurp off a neighbor’s router. So,

And that’s when issue two happened: my desktop (heretofore referenced as The Old Beast – 10 years old and still kicking), which had been in storage for more than a month, crashed when I tried to boot it up. No worries on that front: I had plenty of operating systems to cover that problem. And seeing that we were about to do some podcasting that night, I installed XP on Old Beast, locked onto the Free Public Wi-Fi and waited for the Crisis on Infinite Podcasts.

We lasted about an hour before things started going horribly wrong.

I was just starting my pick of the week (thank you, Toby Jones) when I received a Blue Screen of Death. Not even a day out of cold storage, and a freaking BSOD pops up on my screen. Hey, no worries – I’ll just reboot the Old Beast and log back into the Skype call.

Nope. XP wouldn’t restart. I knew I should have just reinstalled Crunchbang.

OK, time for Plan B: I grabbed the netbook, fired it up and searched for the free wi-fi node.

The netbook could not find the node. Just like that, gone.

So, all in all, massive tech fail.

Just another typical week in podcasting. Here’s hoping next week will go better.

message from the border

Steven Perez — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:09:33 +0000

I’ll bet you’ve been asking, “How come he don’t write?”

Actually, I’ll bet you’ve been asking, “Oh, God, him again?”

I’d love to report that I’ve retired to a palatial villa on the Pacific Ocean, sipping cold drinks with paper umbrellas in them, and watching the beautiful women in string-floss bikinis running and cavorting in the surf nearby. Sadly, not the case at all.

I’m on the border, currently. It’s a place which I dearly hoped that I would never return. Twice. And yet, here I am again, trying to get the smell of 40-year-old bacteria and tile and fiberglass and the memories of twenty years ago out of my skin.

And I haven’t even mentioned what the goats next door have been doing at five in the morning. Let’s just say that they are quite loud and not too particular about who hears them.

James Agee once said that you can never go home again. I suspect that he barely knew the half of it. I think that the reason you can never go back to a place you’ve once lived in is because you change. You become a different person. And the places and people that once meant something to you change or die or go away. And you return and find that everything you once knew has moved on, and the scenery has changed, and everything you once remembered with fondness is no more, and you really don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things, because hey, you moved on, too.

Humbling, really. Especially when you need to find things on a map all over again, in a place you once knew like the back of your hand.

And you’d think I’d stop doing this. You think I’d stop goping back to those places that meant something to me, hoping to see those old faces and older places, only to find that time, that old bastard of a thief, has changed everything around once again.

Maybe I’ll feel better after a nap. And a drink.

And after I give the goats next door some hormone suppressant.

mouth full of tweets

Steven Perez — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:00:21 +0000

Polluting the intrawebz, one tweet at a time.

03:05 mouth full of tweets ff.im/d5pUS #
04:16 Pie, Pie, Me oh My, I love Pie! [pic] ff.im/d5z1S #
08:42 I just wounded @marktrosper in an assassination attempt. #spymaster bit.ly/playspy #
10:12 Good morning, FriendFeed. Can’t really talk right now. Packing. [pic] ff.im/d6lzL #
11:50 Packing up the remnants of my life. ff.im/d6o6r #
12:08 PRESIDENT « Pundit Kitchen ff.im/d6oAc #
13:27 Defense Bill Raids Personnel Funds to Pay For Weapons – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant ff.im/d6qvl #
13:32 The decade in news photographs – The Big Picture – Boston.com ff.im/d6qCT #
13:32 Having trouble grasping the concept trollcat | Trollcats ff.im/d6qD1 #
15:32 ‘Love Hormone’ May Trigger Jealousy Too – MSN Health & Fitness – Autism ff.im/d6tzw #
15:34 Finished packing for the day. I should probably kick out that podcast episode now. ff.im/d6tCr #
16:54 IM IN UR LAUNDRY, WATCHIN YUR DELIKATES ff.im/d6viJ #
17:10 Lesson learned: never edit a podcast while watching CONAN movies. Distractions will occur. #randomtimelords #
17:25 He grows up so fast … [pic] ff.im/d6vRM #
17:37 Like grandfather, like grandson. [pic] ff.im/d6w4l #
18:11 OK EVERYBODY BUTTON IT. DOLLHOUSE IS ON. #
18:56 Just saw this commercial during DOLLHOUSE. Remind me again: why did the suits at Fox have such a problem with… ff.im/d6xgF #
20:20 Just took "Which television series do you belong in?" and got: Heroes! Try it ➔ bit.ly/5opJe #
20:21 It figures. Just when DOLLHOUSE starts getting really good, the series gets canceled. Die in flames, Fox. ff.im/d6yj6 #
21:11 Summit sees ‘Red’ – Entertainment News, Film News, Media – Variety ff.im/d6yWz #
21:38 *briefly considers wading into 1000+ items in Google Reader; laughs, hits MARK ALL AS READ and gets another glass of… ff.im/d6zi6 #
21:41 Sinfest | 2009-12-18: Satan Claus 5 ff.im/d6zkE #
21:44 Abstruse Goose » Just Got Real ff.im/d6zmX #
23:41 Photo: another new hat (via Kat&Kat) tumblr.com/xqg4sn1bd #
23:41 Photo: New Year, Here We Come (with hats!) (via Ana Santos) tumblr.com/xqg4sn1li #
23:42 Photo: Tartan Hat (via Annie Butterfly) tumblr.com/xqg4sn1y5 #
23:42 Photo: Day 117 18.11.08 hats, hoodies and cool winter sun â® (via â®freedomâ®) tumblr.com/xqg4sn2fu #
23:43 Photo: You can leave your hat on (via ^Sil^) tumblr.com/xqg4sn2om #
23:43 Photo: In a hat on the bed. Again. (via {amanda}) tumblr.com/xqg4sn2wo #
23:43 Photo: The Top Hat Diaries (via Devilllle) tumblr.com/xqg4sn35p #
23:44 Photo: Conical hat and purple Ão dÃ i (via NaPix — Hmong Soul) tumblr.com/xqg4sn3g6 #
23:44 Photo: La fi dels barrets/el fin de los sombreros (via sarafaus) tumblr.com/xqg4sn3uf #
23:45 Photo: Sombreros II (via Martini Mike) tumblr.com/xqg4sn49r #
23:45 Photo: yo quiero mi sombrero (via peggy.) tumblr.com/xqg4sn4hr #
23:46 Photo: Mujer con sombrero (via Memo Vasquez) tumblr.com/xqg4sn4zu #
23:46 Photo: sombrero (via Mary Hockenbery (reddirtrose)) tumblr.com/xqg4sn5ck #
01:26 2:30 in the morning, and I’m waiting for the podcast clean-up program to finish. Watching RESIDENT EVIL 3, because I… ff.im/d6BYa #
01:27 God help me if I ever get honest employment. I’ve gotten used to going to bed at three and waking up at ten. ff.im/d6BZ2 #
02:15 Fierce Lovin’ from Another Dimension ff.im/d6CFC #
02:16 Episode 25 of Random Time Lords brings the fierce lovin’, baby. #randomtimelords is.gd/5tv1E #