Something That Happened.

I have something to add to the podcast I made earlier today [3MB MP3]. Though I usually prefer to enjoy cinema in a theater, today I was poignantly reminded of one of the benefits of the DVD: the Special Features so often found on the media. On a whim, I popped a DVD I had recently rented, The Notebook, into the player, and decided I'd check out the Special Features for a few minutes while eating my lunch.

I found myself, a half hour later, even more emotionally moved by the Deleted Scenes than I had been while watching the full presentation a few days ago. I'm so glad to have been able to watch these scenes that I would have surely missed had I seen the film in a theater. So the arguments I made earlier are still up in the air, though perhaps I can resolve them by concluding that both ways of watching movies are equally beneficial

As for Ourmedia.org, I have yet to find myself moved so entirely by a work I've seen presented there. However, I have faith that it will happen, and soon. I'll let you know when it does. In fact, here is a mockumentary I thought was extremely funny; it's called Deep Inside: Uterus Jones.

Labels: audio, Blockbuster Online, commentary, John Holowach, movies, Netflix, Ourmedia

I've been away for a long time; even though you've seen me post here sporadically over the past several weeks, I haven't really been present. What I mean is, I haven't really been putting my full attention into this project, Something That Happened. My mind and my heart have been consumed with other activities, and I haven't fully returned to my online life - I've been on the peripherals, testing software and responding to the few emails I receive. Last week's Gnomedex, I believe, helped bring me back to the online community. I wasn't physically there, and I was disappointed at that, but I found satisfaction in my virtual participation, enough to make me feel I attended the event.

Now it's time for me to get back into the groove of storytelling. I'll begin by warming up, posting recordings of thoughts I'm having (as long as I think they're interesting enough for anyone else to listen to). Here's this morning's: my consideration of Internet DVD rental services versus Ourmedia.org. [3MB MP3] Boring as hell, but consider it warmup.

[Audio version of this post, 2.2MB MP3]

(Excerpt from) Best Buy Service Dirge

Perhaps a month without a PC;
perhaps much longer - that we shall see.
O, woe are they who buy eMachines
thinking they're safe with their PSPs!

I'm not one to bitch and whine about things, but I'm going to make an exception today because I feel - no, I know - my complaint is valid. Certainly there are more troublesome issues in the world than this, but life is short and I'm going to tell you why Best Buy may have just contributed to the degradation of the quality of my life for one entire month...or perhaps longer. And how many months do we have to live? Not nearly enough.

We (my girlfriend and I) purchased a personal computer at Best Buy a year ago, paying extra for a 3-year service warranty the retail store chain calls a PSP, or Performance Service Plan. I used to work at Best Buy, so I know that the PSP is the company's bread and butter; they encourage employees to push the PSP in order to make more money off their purchases. Everyone from the salesperson to the cashier is supposed to ask you if you want a PSP, and they will ask it for any item for which it is available. (Thankfully, CD's do not have PSP's.)

We were "sold" on the PSP because we felt it would be protect us in case we had any problems with our new (and expensive) purchase. I recall not entirely wanting to purchase the PSP for this particular purchase - computers usually demonstrate their shortcomings within the first few days of use, well within the range of Best Buy's default return policy - but the salesperson was adamant about the PSP's benefits, and my girlfriend and I were swayed to rack up more charges on our credit card. What the hell, we concluded, better safe than sorry.

As it turns out, the computer does have problems, and so we recently found ourselves carrying our failing electronics back to the Best Buy store we had purchased it from. We carried it directly to the Customer Service department, checked it in for a diagnostic check (covered by our PSP), and later was informed that the computer had issues with its video memory (or something). The Best Buy employee, a professional and friendly fellow who I have no issue with, asked us to sign a few forms authorizing the store to ship the computer off to another land in a far-off place, where the electronics would be magically repaired and then shipped back to Best Buy - all within 10 to 14 days.

This is perhaps a reasonable amount of time for a computer to be packed, shipped, fixed, and returned, 10 to 14 days, but it seemed a long time to be without a computer. I rely on my computer for so much these days that nearly two weeks without it could be devastating to my career, not to mention my psyche. I asked Best Buy for a loaner I could use in the meantime, but the rep said they didn't do that kind of thing. Oh, well, I figured, what other choice do I have? Fortunately I have an old Mac at home I can use temporarily...

Nearly two weeks passed, and we received a phone call from Best Buy. The computer had been returned to the store from that far-off land, the rep reported. Apparently, the wizards in that mystical land couldn't seem to find anything wrong with the device, and so had sent it back. Once the computer was received, the store had run another diagnostic check, finding the same results they had nearly two week earlier: the video memory (or something) was damaged.

So now they are sending it back to that far-off land, this time with a note insisting that the computer be repaired. They were apologizing for this inconvenience, and for that I am grateful. I asked how long the computer would be gone, suspecting the answer that I would soon hear: 10 to 14 days. Again, I asked, just to be sure, whether I could obtain a loaner; receiving a negative response on that, I asked if I could trade the computer in for another computer, paying the difference for a more recent machine. The reply came quickly, as if asked frequently: Unfortunately, that's not how our service plan works. So,

Best Buy Service Dirge

Beware, my friends, before you buy big!
That Best Buy store has its system rigged
enticing you to spend some more bucks
on a plan that won't stand. Trust, it sucks!

Perhaps a month without a PC;
perhaps much longer - that we shall see.
O, woe are they who buy eMachines
thinking they're safe with their PSPs!

The following story should have no appeal to normal people; it is for people like me, geeky and entertained by technical accounts of installation and troubleshooting headaches. Unless you're easily entertained, I encourage you to read or listen to one of my prior stories instead.

I have a PowerBook G3 I took a chance on at Goodwill, purchasing for $60 knowing that it was having some issues. It appears I've resolved those issues by reformatting the hard drive and temporarily installing a new operating system. This is what I was hoping for, and so far so good. So now the plan is to install the operating system I will be using going forward; the question is, which one do I choose to use?

Since this is an Apple computer, and an old one at that - a PowerBook G3 "Wallstreet" running at 233MHz - I have the following choices: 1) any flavor of Mac OS from 8 through X, or 2) Linux. Currently I have OS 9.2.2 installed, the highest of Apple's "Classic" operating systems prior to their switch to OS X. If I stick with Apple, I'd prefer to run the fastest flavor of OS X, which is (thankfully) their latest release, Tiger. Yet I've just found out that Tiger introduces an issue of concern to PowerBook owners: it stresses the CPU more than prior releases. This causes the CPU to get hot and the fan to spin up frequently, something Panther and other releases of OS X rarely did. This makes for a noisy PowerBook, and I'd guess it doesn't help preserve battery life much, either.

I also have the option of installing Linux. Ubuntu is the current Linux distribution I'm considering; it installs on old PowerBooks and provides access to the ever-increasing variety of applications (most of them free) available to Linux users. Yet I'm uncertain as to whether my new wireless PC card will be compatible with Ubuntu; I have some evidence it will but it seems that Mac OS X is more certain to perform in that area. Having a reliable wireless setup is very important to me - in fact, it's the main reason I purchased the PowerBook.

Installation itself may also be an issue, since I don't currently have a CD/DVD-ROM drive, a floppy drive, or a reliable network connection to install from. I was able to install OS 9 only after purchasing some cables on eBay, networking the PowerBook to an old Umax (Macintosh clone), and using its CD-ROM drive to install from. The problem is, the Umax doesn't always want to recognize it's own CD-ROM drive, so I often have to reboot several times before the drive shows up. That's not even the half of it, for even when it does recognize the drive, there's no guarantee it'll show up on my PowerBook, too. I'm not certain why this happens; there's clearly a bit of SCSI Voodoo going on here. I only know that some mystical series of reboots between my PowerBook and the Mac clone sooner or later brings up the OS install disc's icon on my PowerBook, and when it does I jump on the opportunity to run the installer. During this series of exercises I feel like a circus clown performing his juggling routine, flaming scsi-enabled Macs flying through the air. I suppose I should simply be happy the drive shows up at all, but you can understand why I'm not exactly looking forward to my next install, which has the potential to provide even more comedy.

All this said, I'm willing to go through some trouble in order to get the operating system of my dreams installed on this computer. I don't believe OS 9.2 is it, though it's a fine operating system for those who, well, don't need OS X or Linux. I think I do, however, unless someone know of a way I can get my wireless PC adapter to work under OS 9. (The PC card is a D-Link DWL-G630.) Email your suggestions, if you have any.

Ourmedia is being presented today at Gnomedex. Listen to the live audio stream of the event you should be able to find at the Gnomedex Wiki or one of the many podcasts of the event you'll find in a variety of locations on the web. One such way to find these podcasts is by following the instructions on this page, which basically tell you to subscribe to this RSS feed using your podcast receiver.

Everyone is graduating, and it makes for an interesting scene in my neighborhood, across from the university: a parade of parents, visiting their children's homes for the first time, unfamiliar terrain they are attempting to coolly navigate, cautious deer through woolly woods. It is a comedy, and one on an epic scale, this grand view of a flock of kindhearted and quirky citizens, not quite certain they are ready for their children's entry into Adulthood, true Adulthood, where the children must begin their working lives or stall in their parent's homes.

A phone call in the middle of the night - early morning, actually. The voice sounds tense: "She's gone," he says.

If you survived that last bit of nonsense, you may enjoy this one even less: a recording of a conversation about Star Wars, made while driving through Westwood Village [5.5MB MP3]. Eat your heart out; maybe tomorrow I'll edit it and podcast the resulting audio.

If you think you would enjoy listening to me blah blah blah'ing while inside a digital art installation at UCLA's Department of design|media arts center in Westwood Village, then go ahead and download this [1.7MB MP3]. I advise you to wait until I have something actually interesting to listen to, though.