All posts by archangel

Rants

eBay & half.com Precautions

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I’ve recently been burned by half.com and ebay, and while I don’t think they’re dangerous, you need to take a few precautions to protect yourself:

Upon winning a bid or purchasing an item, send an email to the seller to make sure they’re sending you exactly what you want.

For example, even though the product description said the DVD was widescreen, the seller didn’t check it, and sent full frame. Granted, full frame DVDs should all be destroyed on principle, which is why they’re often cheaper. So always make sure you’re getting exactly what you expect, ’cause darn it, only the director’s cut of Kangaroo Jack will do.

Ask for a shipping confirmation email with tracking number.

The ship times afforded to sellers are, in my opinion, overly generous. Sometimes 3 weeks. I’m sorry, but when we’re talking about that mediocre movie where that ingenue I’m in love with is topless for 6 seconds, I don’t have that kind of time. If you have a tracking number, you can be reasonably sure it’s not arriving via asthmatic pack mule.

Lose your patience.

Hey, I’m not telling you to be a jerk about it. Be polite, but understand that you’ve got a limited window (60 days, maybe) to get a refund. I was very patient with a seller, as there was some communication between us. Next thing I know, they’re no longer registered, their feedback dropped like a rock, and half.com is telling me it’s too late to file a claim. Another time, I waited until the last day it had to arrive (the aforementioned 3 weeks), and the seller’s response was, “Sorry, I never got the order.” While probably a lie, since I received both the “order received” and “order confirmed” emails, he did give me an immediate refund. Still a big waste of time. Better to yell early, then give good feedback.

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Politics

How to Make Me Liberal

Apparently, I’m a Republican. I don’t remember signing up, but I am a huge supporter of Schwarzenegger, and I took an online test that pointed me in that direction. I guess I acted on it, because today I received a census form from the RNC.
    The letter explained that it wanted my opinions, and they would count for my entire voting district. Wow! I was excited. I like having my opinions counted, mainly because they’re better than most people’s. Finally, I’d get to tell the RNC what really matters to smart Republicans:

  • Personal investing over Social Security
  • Alternative fuel research
  • School choice
  • Eliminating censorship
  • Flat tax
  • Higher education
  • Space and defense (i.e., my paycheck)
  • Eliminating the deficit
  • Allowing gay marriages, as banning them violates separation of church and state, and is a real dick move to boot.

I really wanted to sound off on these issues. Tell them to be more like Arnold and less like George. Maybe they’d even have a write-in section! I was prepared to fix the party.

Alas, this was not to be the case.

All of the questions had yes/no/undecided answers, and worded so they’d be hard to say “no” to. Examples:

Do you support President Bush’s initiatives to promote the safety and security of all Americans?
Should the Inheritance or “Death Tax” be permanently repealed?
Do you support President Bush’s pro-growth policies to create more jobs and improve the economy?
Should small business be encouraged to grow and hire more workers?

Even controversial issues were worded carefully:

Do you support President Bush’s initiative to allow private religious and charitable groups to do more to help those in need?

Huh. I’m not sure about special breaks for religious groups, even though I’m a Christian. I mean, why didn’t we always do this? Was there a good reason? Was it being taken advantage of, perhaps by unscrupulous people forming religious groups to live off taxpayers. I don’t know. But I’m definitely for helping those in need, so “Yes”.

It went on like this. I could only give a definitive no to one question:

Do you support the President’s efforts to save Social Security and add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare?

See, I know Social Security needs to be fixed, not just band-aided over, and probably won’t exist by the time I retire. And the Medicare bill Congress passed is going to cost us a fortune that we don’t have. So, ok, that’s definitely a bad idea, even though it sounds like I hate old people and want them to die penniless and sick.
    I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that they didn’t care about my opinions at all, and were just looking for a *gasp* donation. I don’t know, I’m probably reading into things. Why don’t you read the final question, and tell me if I’m wrong:

Will you join the Republican National Committee by making a contribution today?
o Yes, I support the RNC and am enclosing my most generous contribution of:
o $500   o $250   o $50   o $25   o Other $_________
o Yes, I support the RNC, but I am unable to participate at this time. However, I have enclosed $11 to cover the cost of tabulating my survey.
o No, I favor electing liberal Democrats over the next ten years.

All questions were copied directly from the survey. At no point did I embellish the questions or answers.

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Music

Upcoming Concerts

This is as much a reminder to myself as it is an invite to those interested. Here are some concerts I’m planning to attend:

House of Blues Anaheim
I like this one because parking’s a cinch, as it’s in Downtown Disney. This also makes it a somewhat ironic venue.

9-22   Ministry with My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Hanzel Und Gretyl
11-15 KMFDM – 20th Anniversary Tour with support DJ? Acucrack

Avalon
Never been there, used to be Hollywood Palace. Found this post on their forum about parking, should make it easier/cheaper. And weekday events should help, too.

10-12 Badly Drawn Boy

I’ll also be at Avalon for The Pixies, but that’s sold out. And I would have mentioned The Beastie Boys at Universal Amphitheatre, but all that’s left are extreme-stage-left nosebleed seats.

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Books

Cavaliers and Clay Men

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like for writers of Golden Age comic books, I heartily recommend The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (The Wonder Boys). The two heros are comic book pioneers whose basic background closely resembles that of Siegel and Shuster, the creators of Superman.
     The level of detail in setting and and character were truly awe inspiring. Most of the story takes place in late 1930s-40s NYC, and I couldn’t tell where fact ended and fiction began. It’s a masterful book that feels exhaustively researched.
     Michael Chabon received the Pulitzer Prize for it, joining some of my other favorite authors: Roger Ebert, Dave Barry, and Scott McNeely. Who says I’m not cultured?

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Film

Clerks II: Electric Boogaloo

Kevin Smith has decided to make a sequel to Clerks. I seem to recall him saying that this would never happen, so why now? It’s a confidence builder, both for him and Miramax. After the relatively poor performance of Jersey Girl ($10M loss before video), he wants to do something low cost ($5M) and high profit. In other words, a great investment/gift for Miramax.
     If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s exactly what he did after Mallrats tanked ($2M gross, $6M budget): make Chasing Amy for $250K, which grossed over $12M.

This might sound harsh, and if you don’t like it, you can read E!’s more subtlely biased version. Smith’s “cranking out” a screenplay? Somehow I doubt that, a-hole.

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Film

Welcome To The Garden State

I saw Garden State tonight. It was definitely good, but I got myself psyched up for brilliance, or at least something that spoke to me on a very personal level. There it fell short. Oh, as a hopeful screenwriter, it spoke to me, mainly as a guy who would love to write a screenplay that attracted Natalie Portman, then cast myself as the guy who gets to kiss her. That connection was made, wide and deep.
     But as a guy who spent his formative years in Jersey (2/3 of my life, really), I felt there was very little to connect to. We are taught in screenwriting to come up with a great title, something that tells you what the film is about. When you’re stuck, or feel off course, you can go back to it like a compass. Garden State, however, is about its main character, Andrew Largeman. (Perhaps Largeman didn’t test as well.) Even though we both left Jersey for SoCal about 9 years ago, I didn’t feel we shared the same background. I felt Clerks “got” Jersey far better. This could’ve been set in many other states.
     It’s a charming movie, though, and a great freshman effort. While the writing could have been tightened, the directing was solid. He had some strong, memorable visuals, and a soundtrack so good I was pissed I couldn’t buy it immediately. The performances were great, albeit from a fantastic cast. I’m not sure why I like Peter Sarsgaard so much, maybe it’s the credibility he lends to scenes. He’s also exudes a certain intensity.

My favorite line from Ebert’s review:

She is Sam (Natalie Portman), a local girl who is one of those creatures you sometimes find in the movies, a girl who is completely available, absolutely desirable and really likes you.

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Technology

The Spyware That Shagged Me

A couple years ago I switched from NT to Win2k, because spyware bundled with BearShare hosed my system. For the record, Win2k doesn’t protect against spyware, but I’m loathe to upgrade a working system. For the other record, I paid $10 for LimeWire and it was well worth it.

Since then, I’ve found a couple good programs to fight this. The first was Ad Aware. It’s good, but didn’t detect a recent problem. I found out that Pest Patrol often finds spyware that other programs miss. They offer a free scan of your system, and offer detailed instructions on how to rid the menace. While the instructions are clear, they often have many steps, and you’ll probably buy the thing to make your life easier.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy for me. After many attempted removals (all requiring reboots), I was getting nowhere. The asshats who write spyware have it start up immediately, and the asshats who wrote Windows lock all running programs so they can’t be deleted (this is one of the reasons why it requires so many reboots). If you run into this problem, you have to find the offending file and remove read and execute permissions (through Properties->Security). Leave the write permission on, because you need it to delete it.

I told Pest Patrol of this problem, but never got a response. Granted, I can have a bit of a snarky attitude when frustrated, but if I followed Lincoln’s 24 hour rule for poison pen letters, I’d never send any.

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About

Server Upgrade

Over the weekend, I installed a 200GB hard drive (8MB cache, 7200RPM, $70 after MIR). This is primarily a backup drive, so I set up a couple cron jobs to manage this. Mail and web content will be copied daily, and home directories will be copied weekly. If you need daily backups of your directories, you should be able to add your own crontab entry. The home directories are backed up to /backup/home/.

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