The Offline Files, Vol. I, Chapter I

UPDATE: You may wish to skip this, as it appears it will be a rather lengthy "diary entry" outlining part of my time offline since 7/5/2006. One-way, non-interactive dialogue isn't all that exciting, IMO, but some of y'all may want to read it... I'm just trying not to forget how to type. ;)

Saturday, July 8, 2006, 19:20 CDT

Well, it sucks not being able to get online just any ol' time I like, but I'll live, I'm sure. One thing that seems obligatory is for me to at least document some of what's going on in my life while I'm unable to interact in real-time. After all, I know some of y'all will want to know what's up with Curly, at least. :)

Curly's just fine, having gotten over my absence of the last few days, while helping the landlord move. He's gotten a lot of attention today. He's asleep at my feet at this moment.

My soreness, from the moving ordeal, is just about over, and with the help of ibuprofen and sittenpretty's gift of a topical analgesic, I'm weathering it well.

I saved this pizza box from Moving Day, simply 'cause I thought the label was entertaining:

Have you accepted Christ as your personal pizza experience manager? :)

20:14 CDT

I started back into my modest DVD library, having little to nothing to do, tonight.

First up was Vanilla Sky. Regardless of how one feels about Tom Cruise, I consider this one of the better sci-fi flicks of the last decade. While Penelope Cruz isn't my exact ideal of physical beauty, her character in this flick captivates me in ways I can't explain ("I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats," etc.). I think she reminds me of an exotic, flighty, artistic girlfriend I had twenty years ago. Sure, it's a Cameron Crowe Hollywood blockbuster, but at least it's not a spoon-fed story; it makes one think about what's really happening up until the end.It's also a little sad, as the main character, who has it all, is pulled into circumstances that no death row inmate could desire.

Now, I've got American Beauty paused. Gore, do I love this film. I first saw it in the theater with a lady I dated from my last workplace, and neither of us knew the plot beforehand. It was a bit uncomfortable, as she and her ex-husband had only been divorced about a year, and he'd left her for a girl that was only a year older than their oldest daughter. It really affected my date in an unusual manner, as she felt it necessary to warn me away from her daughter (as if that were even in my mind!), afterward; that was more than a bit weird for me, obviously, but the film left me changed in other ways.

I made a point of bringing that film on a vacation I took with my next girlfriend, as she hadn't seen it. When it didn't resonate with her in any way, it clenched my suspicion that the relationship wasn't going anywhere (and, it didn't; there had been other, more important indicators prior to this, but her comment, "Oh, it's just a movie," convinced me I was with the wrong woman).

I still think this film has my favorite soundtrack of all time... Randy Newman's brother (cousin?), Thomas, did the score, and it is incredible. There are two composers that use keyboard percussion in an interesting way, these days -- Tom Newman, and Danny Elfman -- and Tom Newman's soundtrack to American Beauty is, to me, a modern classic. At any rate... the storyline resonates with me. There's probably not a middle-aged man alive who hasn't been stunned by a much younger woman's beauty, but the realization that even if such a pairing were possible, there's no there there -- no real commonality -- is always foremost in my mind ("Hey, Nineteen") in the rare moments where I might fall victim to those fleeting kinds of physical infatuations.

Jeez, Allison Janney is in this! Dang. I'd forgotten that. Her character is perhaps the most sympathetic in the film. It's also a huge departure from most of the roles I associate with her.
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Monday, July 10, 2006, 18:16 CDT

I'm watching The News Hour... depressing, of course. Not sure if the depression is worsening simply due to my isolation, or what. I have a couple of photos to share, though. Here's Curly, hanging out with Dad, looking up with that "Where'd the pettin' go?" look:

Tuesday, July 11, 2006, 22:22 CDT

I'm wandering the neighborhood, tonight, seeking signal, whilst the laundry is going. I think I'm going through net withdrawal.

Back now. Signal seekage failed (obviously!).

Here's Curly, in the bathroom closet. Isn't he a lucky cat to have a completely empty closet shelf to call his own?

Wednesday, July 12, 2006, 11:29 CDT

Thank Gore for NPR. Listening to Fresh Air, Terri Gross is interviewing Tom York of Radiohead. Now, Radiohead is one of those bands I'd always known about, but never actually knowingly heard. After having heard excerpts of most of their releases within this interview, I feel comfortable saying I'm glad I never bought one of their CDs. Like so many critically-acclaimed bands, I just don't get it. There's no accounting for taste, y'know. Even though this has nothing do do with my lack of appreciation for the music, I found York to be a horrible and very inarticulate radio interview subject. If he'd have said "blahblahblah" one more time, I may have broken the boombox. :)

NPR's bumper/filler music I often find interesting, though. Since I haven't had any real disposable income, I haven't bought new music in forever, but on the recently-departed Toshi notebook, I kept a text file of things to eventually check out; This Morning Jacket is the only band that comes immediately to mind from that file, but I had a couple of dozen entries in there, and almost all of them I heard first on NPR.

I hope I never again hear that industrial/electronica loop they used a couple of weeks ago, though. I don't know who it was, but it had the sound of an unlubricated metal part, screeching against another unlubricated metal part, which, in the loop, repeated every 5-6 seconds. After the fourth screech, I had to shut off the radio for a minute.

15:40 CDT

I'm taking another stab at retrieving files from the recently-departed Toshi notebook's hard drive, using the ultra-cool Kanotix bootable CD. I was poking around, just trying to move some test files from the C:\ drive onto the large external USB drive, when it seemed I could not gain write permissions to it. No way, no how. In trying to resolve that issue, I see that the Kanotix documentation warns the user to NOT try to write to NTFS file structures, as corruption to the filesystem may result. Dang. Of course, both the internal HDDs and the big external USB drive all have been formatted as NTFS volumes. Sigh. My next attempt will be to set up CD writing under Kanotix, and see if I can pull off the surely <700mb style="font-weight: bold;">16:30 CDT

Moot point! The HDD interface on the GWPDA Coalition notebook is quite unlike that of the HDD that came out of the recently-departed Toshi notebook. The old HDD's interface looks a lot like a normal IDE connection, but the pins are just slightly closer together. The new HDD has something similar to edge card pins, allowing for very easy removal/installation. Of course, since the old HDD had a bit of a rattle, it may well have never been mountable under Kanotix, anyway, even if it did have a compatible interface. I'll hang onto it, on the chance that I may encounter an interface for it sometime in the future. But for now, it's no-go.

18:19 CDT

Dammit -- may I ask: What the fuck is WKRN's major malfunction?

The mail has run again, today, and again, I have no $100 check for my guest blogging stint that I did in early April. Now, to be fair, I didn't send Brittney -- the NashvilleIsTalking.com maven -- my W-9 until about 6-7 weeks ago. She had indicated that she needed it to be mailed or faxed, but without a printer or a fax machine, I was stumped. In the end, I edited the PDF in Photoshop, scanned, scaled and affixed my signature, and e-mailed it to her as an attachment, and she said that'd work fine. She has been nothing but helpful and apologetic, each week promising that the check would go out on Thursday. Apparently, as she explains, there's some jihad going on in their accounting department... but I am calling them tomorrow morning to let them know I'll be coming to live in their lobby very soon, as I'm a week away from rent day, and I really fucking need that $100, right now.

I'm gonna call Sallyh later. If I recall her last e-mail, she was planning to call me, but she was going to be away for the weekend for her anniversary. I've probably scared her away from calling, telling her of the draconian pre-paid charges I have to pay. :) So, I'll do the right thing, and call her, instead.

20:10 CDT

Ever pet your kitty with your feet?

Here's Curly in the closet, again... I guess the heat has him looking for dark, cool places, maybe. It never got up to 90F today, but he seems to be crying for me to open this closet door early each day, and he spends a lot of time sleeping right here during the day.

I tried calling Sallyh a couple of times about 30 minutes ago... seems I remember she and her hubby have dinner later, so I thought I'd be calling at a good time, but she didn't answer. I didn't leave a message, saving a whole dollar! ;) Dang... I hope I haven't alienated her in some way. I honestly have never felt quite this isolated, having not been without semi-regular Internet service for a long, long time.

Thursday, July 13, 2006, 02:42 CDT

I woke up a few minutes ago, and thought I'd switch on the TV, and start up the Star Trek tape again, to help me drift off to sleep, as I so often do. There I was, groggily watching the DS9 episode, "Take Me Out To The Holosuite," a silly story about Sisko's crew trying to beat a team of Vulcans at baseball, when suddenly, a green flash, and the TV shuts off. I switch the TV on, and again, after minute or so of normal behavior, a green flash, and the TV stays on, but no picture.

What strikes me as funny is that last week, as we were moving his TV, I was telling my landlord that I bought this base model 27" Sony when I moved to Nashville, which was nearly 12 years ago, so it was probably going to fail at any moment.

10:11 CDT

Well, the TV seems to be working okay, now. How odd. I think it caught a virus from the recently-departed Toshi notebook, and we know how that turns out...! ;)

11:54 CDT

The number I got from Sahib yesterday for WKRN has been disconnected, dammit. I oh-so-wisely recycled all my phone books, just knowing that I could always use Bellsouth's website if I ever needed a phone number. :)

Aha! I actually did hang onto the most recent yellow pages! Of course, they're not listed with every other Nashville TV station in the yellow pages -- nope, they're listed in the thin, white section in the front ("Nashville businesses, alphabetically"), and not under WKRN, but under "News 2 WKRN-TV," of course! Yep, WKRN's number has changed. I spoke to Crystal in Accounts Payable... she says my check went out on 7/7 -- last Friday. I've never had something sent USPS from in town that took a week to arrive, but Crystal confirmed the correct address w/condo unit number, so...

On another topic... I just finished listening to Terri Gross' interview with George Soros. Either Gross and her producers are being disingenuous, are incredibly naïve or are purposely trying to shape public opinion of wealthy liberals. You get three guesses which case I think is most accurate... and the first two guesses don't count.

She spent the majority of the interview constantly reformulating the question of whether it is proper for a wealthy individual to try to influence the outcome of an election. Haw!

18:36 CDT

Welp, I called and left a message for Sallyh, since I'd already had to use the phone today to call WKRN. I hope I hear from her later; it's been almost a week since I've talked to anyone other than Sahib (and Curly, of course). I'm thinking I may walk into town tomorrow to a WiFi cafe... I think the nearest one (Cafe Coco) is perhaps five miles away, so I can walk there in about 1h40m, each direction. If I wrap the notebook in a plastic trash bag, and put it in the nylon carry bag I have, it should be safe against the 40% chance of t-storms.

No matter how isolated I feel, at least I don't have to worry about artillery shells landing on my condo. How bad can anything be, knowing that?

Btw, the TV is still operating A-OK... bizarre. I got to thinking about this today, and there was a power outage that happened about a week ago, while I was watching TV. It lasted about 45 minutes, and when the power came back on, the TV also came on -- unusual, since it has a "soft power" switch. My first observation was that it badly needed degaussing; there was a huge spot of green discoloration in both right corners. Of course, over the next couple of cycles of powering the TV on and off, the built-in degaussing coil fixed that little problem.

The question remains: What caused the TV to freak out? :)

Friday, July 14, 2006, 20:22 CDT

I still have no $100 check from WKRN for my guest blogging stint in early April -- supposedly, the check was sent from in town, last Friday, and I comfirmed, yesterday, with the Accounts Payable person, Crystal, that the address wes correct. I need this money to pay my rent, this month.

I also heard back from sallyh this afternoon, thank Gore.

She and I discussed her San Francisco anniversary celebration, and Curly's status, of course. :) She seemed less than convinced when I told her I'd be online in the next few days, to update everyone, which is understandable -- I'm feeling like a complete loser at this point.

Saturday, July 15, 2006, 09:17 CDT

Well, here I am at McDonald's -- a 3.4-mile roundtrip walk from the condo, which I was assured had WiFi access. It doesn't -- or, as the manager says, they do, but he doesn't understand why it isn't working. Their tech support says everything looks okay on their end. He says normally, he could check it with his laptop, but he didn't bring it to work, today. He even took my notebook back to the access point, to see if it would see his network at close range, but no. Hey, at least I got some exercise, right?

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 15:35 CDT

I got in touch with Brittney @ NashvilleIsTalking.com today... she had my $100 check in her hot li'l hands. Apparently, their AP department dutifully put the condo unit number on the address, but left off the actual street address. Aha. That's a first. Rent's due tomorrow, so...

Anyway, she was so apologetic, she's planning to drop it by my place in a little bit. That's really sweet of her, I think.

18:15 CDT

Fuck a duck!

Brittney was kind enough to offer me a ride to Starbucks (thanks, Brittney!)... where I get to pay $6 for the privilege of connecting to T-Mobile's hotspot! I apologize for the formatting of this post; I'm sure it's SNAFU'd.
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