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Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Share and Edit My Memories

Posted on August 6, 2010

culture, history, internet culture, microsoft

    Finally, with Microsoft’s help I can finally have that cool adolescence I saw other kids having on TV, and I’ll have never put my foot in my mouth even once. And then, using this sharing function, I’ll have everyone remember what a stud I’ll now have always been and be jealous of how good looking I once will have was.

20 Year Reunion, the pre-SafeT era

Posted on June 28, 2010

Detroit, culture, family, history


SafeT at 17.5 years of age. Note overgrown flat-top.
Hell, note the HAIR!

    SafeT:So that was what a twenty year reunion is like*. Everyone else looked so old; I hope my boyish good looks** didn’t cause any jealousy.
Antoine McCallum: Dude, as athletic and fit as you are, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
James Kirkpatrick:Impressions from the night, besides the fact that you’ve kept your young skin by sleeping in formaldehyde nightly?
SafeT: Antoine, I’d have had to take off some clothes for anyone to notice the fitness, and no amount of fitness can mask my craggy mug.
James, other than Tim Vokes, whom I’d seen as recently as a few years ago, I hadn’t seen any of these people since high school graduation.

For the most part, I was startled at how old everyone looks, and I can only assume I looked startlingly old to them as well; though I just think of myself as looking like ‘me’.

There were lots of lumpier faces, balding heads and beer guts on the men. Most women were wider in the hips and had some crows feet on their faces.

Several of the ladies (and I’ll not name names) looked more attractive now than in high school but, AFAIK, none of the men fared as well. I think that’s more a testament to the God-awful clothes and hairstyles women wore in the late eighties than anything else.
In any case, I tried mingling, with middling success. I’d strike up a conversation, which almost always started with, “I’m Joe Whited and you are…?”, moved through the “where do you live?” and “what do you do?” stages, on to the “any children?” side-shot and tapered off with the awkward denouement, “yeah.. well…”

The group was small, but that fits the size of our class, really. (~80 graduates) And when we adjourned to the “rock” room @ ~22:00, Derek Jenza queued up an earsplitting assortment of period tunes the likes of which I’d grown tired of when still a virgin. This would be more tolerable had it not been mind-numbingly loud. I tired of trying to read lips and Heather and I beat a hasty retreat shortly thereafter.

I left regretting not the reunion, as it was inevitable and missing it would have left a nagging doubt in my mind forevermore, but I’m certainly reassured that my dogged resistance to looking back has been the correct path all along.
I thank the organizers, the ringleaders of which seemed to be Jessica Fritz-Echols, Sula and Derek Jenza. The latter seemed far more gregarious than I remembered him being, but it may be that the gloom-tinted glasses I wore in high school prevented me from seeing it. Class acts, all of them.

* In case you need context, SafeT attended his 20 Year High School Reunion at the Emerald Theater in downtown Mount Clemens, Michigan on Saturday, June 26th, 2010.
** I’m not delusional and I’m not encumbered by sincere and spontaneous braggadocio. This was a weak attempt at sarcasm.

My Email Was Blocked!

Posted on July 27, 2009

culture, internet culture, work

    The following is an actual email conversation which took place following a system upgrade at one of my client sites between a user and the on-site IT staff.
    The names have been changed to reduce legal liability.

  • _____________________________________________
    From: Carmilla Richie
    Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:08 PM
    To: Scott Dartanoin
    Subject: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account

    Scott:
    Why would an email in my private yahoo account be blocked by our system?

    Carmilla Richie
    Senior Loan Officer
    crichie@mortgagematic.com

  • _____________________________________________
    From: Scott Dartanoin
    Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:09 PM
    To: Carmilla Richie
    Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account

    Did you send this to yahoo or receive it from yahoo?

  • _____________________________________________
    From: Carmilla Richie
    Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:10 PM
    To: Scott Dartanoin
    Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account

    It is a daily message that I get and it is blocked saying it is occult.

    Carmilla Richie
    Senior Loan Officer
    crichie@mortgagematic.com

  • Read the rest of this entry »

Bug Attack – No One Gets Fired for Buying Microsoft

Posted on January 5, 2009

culture, linux, microsoft, open source

    Curiouser and curiouser. Why would a bug want to copy a legitimate Microsoft OS DLL into the root directory of a computer and then rename it to a random string with an EXE extension?

    More importantly, why would anyone be browsing the internet from their server console?

    Some people really shouldn’t be allowed to operate their own computer equipment.

    Microsoft, I know you’ve taken plenty of heat lately on security issues, and that IE7 is actually pretty secure provided it is

  1. updated constantly with the many security fixes you provide
  2. operated in a completely paranoid manner by technically savvy individuals

    But if a user is even slightly incompetent or credulous–as the average human is–then within an alarmingly short period of time most Windows-based computers are compromised. Add this to the many shortcomings of the bloated server offerings and unwieldy desktop offerings and I am more satisfied with my decision to use Linux on my laptop every day.

    And yet what alternative do we have in the business space? I can’t sell open source business solutions to save my life! People always complain that they aren’t compatible enough, can’t be integrated easily enough. And if I do happen to sell an open source–or even a non-Microsoft closed source–solution and ANYTHING goes wrong with it I get blamed for the recommendation. You sold me this crap. It’s your fault, says Mr. Unhappy Customer.
    If a Microsoft solution fails–as they sometimes do–then I can usually pass the blame on Microsoft, and the customer is cool with it.

    In the really old days there was a phrase: “No one gets fired for buying IBM.”
    Unfortunately, these days this phrase equally applies to Microsoft.

Simple Packaging

Posted on December 30, 2008

culture, environment, family, holidays

    Christmastime always drills home the fact that American consumers, myself included, produce more trash unwrapping our crap than we probably do throwing the crap away at the other end of the craptispan.

    We succeeded, primarily, in convincing relatives and friends that our daughters would rather have clothes than toys this year, but even so the wraptermath was dismaying*.

    Piles of nearly unrecyclable and glossy four-color print boxes, tough and deadly pieces of twisted plastic blister-packaging, wee little metal twist-ties, and paper! Paper! PAPER!

    There has to be a better way, man. Like, why not have just one pretty display box per item of crap at the store and then just put the crap–a Microsofe Zune**, for instance–into a burlap sack at the check-out counter? I could re-use the burlap for a thrifty business-suit or several sets of underwear. Or, at least, I could use burlap for underwear easier than I could wear a razer-sharp fragment of the Zune’s plastic blister-packaging after I’ve torn it apart with a pair of depressed, short-lived scissors.

* only glossary hoverers will note the redundancy.
** I do not now, nor will I ever, own an actual Zune***.
*** Unless one is gifted to me, after which I will unashamedly sell it on eBay or something.

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