I had plans to go to West Virginia today. In fact, I should have just started on the second leg of my trip (from Las Vegas to Charlotte). Obviously, I'm not on that plane.

My flight out of SFO was originally scheduled for 7 a.m. Around three a.m., I got an automated phone call telling me the flight had been delayed until 9:15. I dutifully arrived two hours early, and then spent two hours standing in line to check in.

I was finally "checked in" to the flight at 9:09 - just as someone called to say that they had closed the door on the plane. Analysis: screwed. There is a great deal more of delicious drama, irritation, and incompetence to this - I was getting the run around from someone, and then from someone else, and then finally I got to talk with the supervisor.

We tried to find an alternative route. The first "offer" was "Leave SFO at 5:30 PM tonight; have a 20 hour layover in Philadelphia, and then finally show up in Huntington at 3:00 PM tomorrow." Obviously, that was sub-optimal, so we did some more work.

Now I leave here on the 24th and return on the 31st (still a week). Only this time, I'm flying first class both ways.

Everyone I know is having problems with flights today. I ran into my friend Ming who was in the same line as I was (only about a half mile behind me).

With all the talk about Dusty Vampires, Community Organizers, and Hockey Moms, it has been easy to overlook more local politics and how important they are.

California Proposition 8 (titled, succinctly, Eliminates Right of Same–Sex Couples to Marry) is this year's attempt by homophobic dumbasses to get gay marriage banned or overturned or redefined or what the fuck ever these crazy fuckers do. For a while, it looked to be a nuisance measure that would be quickly sunk.

(The authors of the measure initially called it the "Marriage Protection Act," but in a show of balls, Jerry Brown, the Attorney General, retitled it to say what it really was. There has been a legal battle of this, by the way: the authors know that "Marriage Protection Act" is far more likely to pass because who doesn't want to "protect" marriage?

You may color me fucking shocked that a bunch of right-wing religious nutjobs tried to deceive a populace with a vote.)

Well, a current poll says that it's going to pass, largely due to the efforts of a bunch of people from out of state.

(I find it ironic that the group that is largely responsible for a grass-roots attempt to get this passed is the Mormons, who have a history of changing the definition of "marriage.")

Pretty much every politician and newspaper in the Great Californian Empire I Love has come out against Prop 8. Even Google hates it - and they don't get into politics.

Hell. Even Ahnuld hates it.

(John McCain supports Prop 8, which should be enough reason for you to vote against it alone.)

Anyways. Back to my evil plot.

I say we just do away with "Marriage" entirely. From now on, the government will only accept and recognize "civil unions." All language everywhere gets changed to that. So the legal definition of "marriage" is null and void and all the stuff like "power of attorney" and crap gets assigned to "civil union." We'll leave the definition of "marriage" to be defined by individual religions or faiths or other whackos rear their heads this week.

If they wanna say that a "marriage" can be between one man and one woman, or one man and fifteen women, or a man and a donkey, fine. Let them. And, in many ways, this would help out all those Mormons who are trying to get Prop 8. passed because they could just go back to their plural marriage crap and keep it in their crazytowns for themselves.

So I say, let's stop protecting marriage and just kick it to the curb. Separation of church and state, bitches!

In California - especially in San Francisco - our presidential votes don't mean dick. The state is going to go blue. The only time it doesn't is when the Republican candidate is from here. So you may be tempted to skip voting because of that.

Don't. Go vote, if only to knock the shit out of these gap-toothed, inbred religious fuckos.

Vote NO on Proposition 8.

The nerd outrage over this is just retarded.

Short version of the story:

A MIT nerd went to pick up a friend at the airport. She went wearing a hoodie that had been modified to have a bunch of LED screens and wires and such sticking out of it while carrying a bunch of clay shaped into a rose. The TSA twigged it for being a bomb and arrested her.

Cue nerd outrage.

Okay. Here's my problem: this was a stupid, stupid thing to do. This is akin to walking up to a police officer on the street, shouting, "YO! COPPER!" and faking like you're reaching for a gun.

You. Are going. To get. Shot.

It's a cut and dried case of Stupid Person Rattling A Cage That Should Not Be Rattled. Sure, it sucks that airports are police states right now.

The best part is that there is surprise that the cops are carrying machine guns. No shit? You think that the tigers in the zoo don't have claws, maybe?

I don't have to read Boing Boing articles anymore. I can just skim the headline and know what Cory or Xeni or the other Clones are going to say about it. You'd think they'd have run out of Outrage Points by now.

Those of you who don't know dick (or care) about Java, Spring, or Hibernate may feel free to skip this.

(It should be pointed out that the Set of people who don't know dick about Java, Spring, or Hibernate seems to include every Java, Spring, and Hibernate developer I know.)

( nerd-ranty-goodness )

Tonight's Irritation (tm) is brought to you by Apple's iTunes!

Thank you, iTunes, for chewing up 80% of my computer's processor for 45 minutes, even though I didn't ask you to, just to generate thumbnails of the album covers for some shitty, unusable "view" of my mp3 library that I will never, ever fucking use, ever because, frankly, a "grid" view of over 1,000 albums is totally fucking useless.

If I had a wish for the iTunes development team, it would be this:

STOP TRYING TO BE CLEVER AND CUTE AND MAKING IT LOOK PRETTY AND INSTEAD MAKE IT OPERATE ON LARGE COLLECTIONS FASTER AND WITH MORE USABILITY.

I could give a fuck about coverflow. That impresses people for all of five minutes until they realize that browsing more than 20 records with it bites ass.

On this machine: 1110 Albums, 37.5 days, 60.93 GB. No videos. Just audio. And that's just a subset; $DEITY help people with what I would consider "huge" collections.

Edit: Damn you to a further layer of hell, iTunes! It just crashed my machine while loading that fucking "genius" mode.

(Genius at crashing boxes, amirite?)

Before people say stupid shit like "buy better computers, yo" I should point out that I go through laptops like a transvestite goes through pantyhose. I get a new one every 6 to 8 months and I always buy top of the line.

(There is a specific business reason for this: if spending an extra 500 bucks on a faster chip will increase my compile times by even fifteen minutes, and my compiles are an hour, I will make profit within five compiles.)

So it's not like my machines are ancient boxes.

This morning they started at 6:30.

Time for another fun day of loud noises, acrid smells, and being unable to leave my apartment because the roads are blocked off.

Fuck you, bitches.

I've totally disabled "coward" mode. I've had too many anonymous comments in too short of time. Accounts are free here! And I seriously don't care if you disagree with me or are a dick to me!

But I gotta know who I'm dealing with.

So, if you can't man up to it, good bye.

I am in Hell.

Or, at least, the closest thing that exists to a real "Hell" for one Brandon Bailey Harris, Esquire.

The construction along the streets, now in it's fifth week, has reached something akin to a malicious crescendo today. The various trucks and ferrous-oxide colored mechanized infantry units have multiplied. They are now a small military whose apparent purpose is to liquify the layers of solid asphalt currently laid on the street. They have a machine that does this with a startlingly degree of efficiency.

It is the more quiet of the machines.

Surrounding this beast are a series of machines (some large, some small, some driven, some held by men) that are effectively jackhammers with varying degrees of power. These are the loud machines. They are performing operations on all sides of my building.

However, the cacophony is not why I now believe myself to be dead and sent to my final resting plane. Oh no.

It is the overwhelming stench of brimstone. Of boiling tar. Of blackened air and pitchy-smoke. The asphalt machines are here. There are four of them.

I hate them. They make me sneeze. I produce a gallon of mucous. I take a fistful of anti-allergy pills. They make my heart race, which, combined with the coffee, my current stress levels, and natural accellerando of a metabolism, isn't much of a good thing. This causes my body to require additional oxygen, which makes me breathe faster. Which, combined with the aforementioned brimstone in the air, causes my lungs to fill up with mucous faster.

This is Hell because I cannot leave. They have blocked the garage entrance with their infernal machines and yellow cones.

Every Saturday morning, starting at 7:30, on a different side of my apartment, for the past month:



This is taken from my porch.

SATURDAY WHY? WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY ORANGE HELMETED PEOPLE DOING?

Are they *seriously* tearing up Portola Drive with big loud machines at eight a.m. on a Saturday Morning?

Why yes. Yes they are.

Edit to add: And wtf are they tearing up the street anyway? Does Newsome have some sort of treasure map taht is missing the X marking the spot?

I seem to remember them doing this like, three years ago anyway.

If I go out of my way to buy you a ticket to see a sold out showing of a popular movie, and you cannot/will not be able to make it for some reason, and there are fifty other people who have asked for a ticket that I could have given it to, here is what you do to AVOID BEING BEATEN TO DEATH BY A CLAW HAMMER:

You call and tell me.

Hell. Just send me a text message!

I could have filled that seat all the way up to 15 minutes before the show!

Grrrr.

Argh. Today they released a "Mandatory Upgrade" for Trillian Astra that, upon install, completely blew away all my preferences, connections, nicknames for contacts, groupings - everything.

Awesome kwality there, guys.

I hate "April Fool's" day with the heat of a thousand fiery suns. Hate.

With the heat of a thousand fiery suns.

Not kidding. Not an April Fool's joke.

It's absolutely impossible to have anything approaching a serious conversation today without someone going "hurrrrr! april fool! hhhrrrr!"

Fucking morons.

I think that the old fire-and-brimstone catholics in the middle ages understood the value of buzzword marketing better than today's magical wizards.

Consider the originals:

1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Gluttony
4. Lust
5. Anger
6. Greed
7. Sloth

Very simple. Concise. Easy to understand and remember. There's a little overlap (I mean, gluttony and greed are kind of similar), but otherwise, a solid list of Shit Not To Be And/Or Do.

Now, let's look at the new list:


1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control
2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty

Okay. First off, good luck remembering this shit.

Second: shut up. Just. You know. Shut the fuck up.

Third, regardless of my opinions of the relative moral merit of any one item, it seems to me that numbers 1 and 2 are kind of the same thing ("bioethical violations") and 5, 6, and 7 are *definately* the same thing (which, amazingly enough, the old fire-and-brimstone guys had a word for already: "Greed").

Somehow I don't see Kevin Spacey murdering a bunch of people because they use condoms.

Are they trying to be "cool" and "with these modern kids?" Because, you know, epic fail.

And it's not even eleven a.m. yet.

The other day, the "service" light flipped on on my car. The oil level was at 15% or something, so I figured I just needed to get some oil in and it would be fine.

Of course, I did the oil thing and the oil level didn't change and the light didn't go off. So I called the Honda shop and said, "hey, WTF?" and the guy asks me some questions and says to me, seriously, "You need to come in for service because we have a policy not to let customers flip the light off."

Which says to me that, with the exception of adding gasoline, there are NO USER SERVICABLE PARTS ON MY CAR. I can't even add oil.

But wait! There's more!

I'm supposed to get a tire rotation and a filter change.

I have had this car less than a month.

And I'm super pissed. Because I'm sure as fuck not going to pay for this.

But wait! There's more!

My personal laptop has decided to give up the ghost. It's hard crashing from time to time for no discernible reason (other than probably the fact that I go through laptops like a transvestite goes through nylons). This is not a good time for this to be happening because, frankly, even though I'm pretty flush with cash right now, I seriously don't want to drop another 2 grand or whatever.

Or take an afternoon to go buying a machine.

Or spend a couple days getting it up and configured and running.

But wait! There's more!

Driving into work today, one of my contacts came out. So I had to drive half blind for about 15 miles. That was fun.

It's the one in my left eye. It seems to be giving me bits of trouble overall: the vision blurs out there from time to time, for instance, and I can usually feel its presence. It fell out last night as well (and, of course, in the car - luckily I was just pulling into my garage). The one in my right eye fits like a glove and gives me, like, zero problems.

Even if I disregard the entire "my extremely common, Windows-based operating system isn't supported and this is no where listed on the box" clusterfuck, I'm not impressed so far.

Why?

Well, I can't seem to make a fucking call. It simply won't dial out.

I can receive calls just fine! But attempting to tap a contact, or even straight dial a number? Nothing. Helen Keller mode.

Is the ability to actually *use* the fucking phone something that takes a while to "kick in", or should I be looking forward to spending hours on the phone with tech support?

I hope the former, and that it fucking works when I wake up. Because otherwise, I'm looking at the hassle of returning it and trying to get my old phone reactivated.

So I bought an iPhone.

Excellent!

I have a 64-bit Vista laptop. iTunes does not fully support this operating system - a year and a half after its release. Okay, fine. It plays music, that's all I care about.

However, to configure the iPhone you have to connect it to iTunes. Okay, groovy!

But there is apparently no 64 bit driver for the iPhone. So it's a brick. "Please connect iPhone to a 32 bit version of Windows XP (SP2) or Vista."

I. . . I don't have one. I have a machine running a 32 bit XP, but it doesn't have any USB2 ports so I can't connect the fucking phone to it.

Luckily, my work laptop is 32 bits, so I'm installing iTunes on there - all just to get my phone that I just spent four hundred bucks on to fucking work.

This is infuriating, since the big mantra for Apple is "easy to use" and "works out of the box".

So, Thursday evening, we had a power outage. There are two servers here, both important for different reasons:

elohim: mail server, shell server, all around "everything" server, but also the server for domains.gaijin.com, which runs this ancient perl cgi stuff.
samael: cvs server and testing server for the games (lots of java)

( tech frustration and nerdity )

In other news, new car is fucking awesome. The specs say 0-60 in 6.7 seconds, but I'm not that good of a driver. Still, from a standstill, the i-VTECH kicks in around 3000 RPM in first and it feels like a rocket booster (not enough to take out a Mustang, but woot). I tooled all the way to Pleasanton in 3rd at about 75 MPH (only revving to about 4000) - and still had 3 speeds to spare.

I had to get new insurance for it, though. And since it's technically a "sports car", my rates went, uh, up.

I just have to figure out how to use the radio.

Work is good. I am making some new friends. The commute is a bit rough - not so much in the morning, but a bit grave in the evening. Most of my commute stress, though, is the fact that I always seem to have to pee while stuck on span 2 of the bay bridge.

Tonight's plan: Tower Burger with Ming and Maynard and KBK.

Of course, the power in the entire neighborhood blows out, throwing water all over that.

It was very creepy up here, with the fog and the rain and absolutely no light whatsoever. Tower Burger was a done deal, so instead we went to this totally awesome burger joint down in the deep mission that Ming knew and stuffed ourselves.

And then went to Mitchell's for ice cream. So more stuffing.

Back up the hill, and the power's on. . .but the shuttle hardware that runs the gaijin.com mail server and a bunch of webservers has completely fried out. Gone. Dead. Diddled and doop. I performed some emergency surgery and swapped drives with the other shuttle, bringing it offline.

Of course, that shuttle is not only the testing environment for all the games, it's also my fscking code repository.

So I'm kind of flying without a net right now until I can buy a new box for the server (which I'll do tomorrow, probably).

It's looking like this weekend is going to be expensive as I was already planning on getting a new car.

Urgh.

Recently, LJ has added a "feature" where, if you hover over a link in someone's page that leaves the lj domain, it puts up a little "preview" bubble or somesuch.

I fucking hate them.

Does anyone know how I can turn this off? Is there a preference of some kind?

Edit: Found it. You have to activate one of the hovers, click on the gear in the corner, and click "disable."