failure weblog

pci and “pod” — these are two of my (currently) least favorite things.
as regards the pci thing… i haven’t bought a motherboard (by itself), or really looked into motherboards, in probably five years. the last time i was looking around the card slots were isa (dying out), pci, and agp. recently i decided to try and help a friend spec out a new motherboard based on what he needs and what hardware he already has. one thing he has is a pci-x card. so a few years ago they evidently added pci-x. okay, i can understand that.
then they added pci express. so now, back to back, they added two names which are totally easy to confuse. trying to find a pci-x board is a pain, because half the time websites say pci-x they are actually referring to pci express (which is every now and then referred to pci-e). pci express can also come in 4 fruity flavors: 1, 4, 8, and 16. so you’ll see pci express x1, pci, pci-e, pci-x, pci express, pci x16, etc. and sometimes even things like pci-x 8 (which doesn’t exist because pci-x is just pci-x).
how in the world could the pci folk have pci-x out, then decide they should take this new thing originally called “3gio” (a name quite unique from the current standards) and rename it “pci express”? like that’s not obviously going to lead to confusion. hhmmm…what could “x” stand for…how about “express”! but no, they’re completely different.
as regards “pod”… apple created a portable music player and called it the ipod. there were other players, but apple’s device dominated the market. consumers started to call all portable music players “ipods”. then some people figured out they could record things and other people could download them. (okay, that happened long before the players.) but someone figured out they could make it easy to “subscribe” via rss and end users could get the latest recording easily. especially nifty was that you could download it and put it onto your portable player and listen at your leisure while away from your computer. this was similar to broadcasting, but it needed a snappy name (like “webcast”, but that was already taken). terms were thrown around, but the one that eventually stuck was “podcast”. which is kind of dumb, because the whole concept is in no way tied to ipods — but the marketplace loved calling everything an ipod, so the marketplace decided. apple apparently was more than happy to embrace this branding terminology, eventually (years after the term was coined) incorporating podcast capabilities into its itunes software. the term “podcast” was being thrown around by everyone, including a lot of people who had absolutely no idea what a podcast really was. the word “podcast” came into its own. eventually people started tying the word “podcast” to products and websites and all sorts of stuff, using the word for the purpose it was meant, which was player agnostic. as companies and brands are wont to do, people starting contracting and combining terms to make new names for their products and services that can be used for/with podcasting.
at this point, apple suddenly seems to have decided it doesn’t want people using the term “pod”. no, not “ipod”. just “pod”. even though they lovingly embraced “podcast”, now that it’s become a word in common usage (a word the u.s. patent and trademark office has deemed common and thus can not be trademarked) they start worrying — it seems the nice brand advertising potential they embraced now may dilute their good name (which isn’t even actually their name since it doesn’t start with an “i”). they’ve gone after a golf podcasting group, people who make software to keep track of arcade game profits (profitpod), a lady who makes a neoprene slip cover for laptops (tightpod), and a group who makes software along with a website to centralize and automate podcast subscriptions and downloads (podcastready (website) and mypodder (software)), among others. the frenzied sharks…er, lawyers…have even gone after a company who makes moving bags for grand pianos because they’re called “pianopods”.
i must confess that russell from podcastready.com listens to the radio show i help do (technology bytes — geekradio.com) and has gone to a number of our gatherings, both monthly and weekly post-show. but that only explains why i’m more cognizant of what has happened — i’d have the same opinion whether i knew someone involved or not.
also, please don’t take my timeline and explanations above as absolute truth of all events. think of it more as a wikipedia entry…maybe it’s true, maybe it has some inaccuracies.

i completed body piercing saved my life: inside the phenomenon of christian rock by andrew beaujon recently. i thought it was a pretty fair-handed attempt by an agnostic outsider to look into the world of christian music — where it came from, what it is, and what makes it tick. he had interviews with brandon ebel (from tooth and nail records), david bazan (pedro the lion), mark soloman (the crucified and stavesacre), steve taylor, doug van pelt (hm i.e. heaven’s metal), etc. as you can see from my list, he — unlike a lot of people writing about christian music — actually pays a lot of attention to the alternative xian music scene. which is cool for me, since that’s where most of my past experience and interest is. it would have been really easy for him to turn the book into a way of belittling and mocking the scene. and there is certainly plenty about it to dislike or find odd, especially if you are an outsider to it. but fortunately, he manages to rein in some of the knee-jerk reactions a lot of people have and present what i found to be an interesting and worthwhile outsider perspective of the scene. if you’ve ever been into the xian music scene, i recommend this book. and if you haven’t, i think it’s a good introduction to the scene and its oddities.

i completed reading by design: science and the search for G-d by larry witham a few weeks ago. i had feared it would be a semi-intellectual attempt at defending the intelligent design movement. (there are a lot of semi-intellgent people clamoring to defend it. 😉 i was pleasantly surprised to find it actually did a decent job of presenting the various modern views in science, and name-dropped quite a few different folk. i could definitely read a slant toward the i.d. side and a number of times it sort of seems to take shots at darwinists and anti-i.d. folk, but overall it read at a higher level and with more info than i’d expected. thank goodness. i really expected it to come across more as a semi-intellectual muckraking job in an attempt to defend i.d. and attack everyone else. you could do a lot worse than this book if you’re trying to find a book about science and i.d. and modern views. (though if you don’t like i.d. and christians who are scientists, then you probably would get annoyed reading it.)

i mentioned going with my parents to a couple of half price books and 75% off books late last week. what i didn’t mention was the stuff i bought. let me take a minute to correct that:
from the half price books at westheimer and montrose:

• * spadella!: the essential spade cooley – spade cooley (legacy/columbia)
• * legends of country: 27 all time favourite country hits – various (prism leisure)

from the half price books in rice village:

• * return to reason – kelly james clark (eerdmans)
• * letters from a skeptic: a son wrestles with his father’s questions about christianity – dr. gregory a . boyd and edward k. boyd (cook communications)
• * the eleventh commandment: a story of success – g. vaughn smith (thirsty turtle press)
• * the gospel according to the simpsons: the spirtual life of the world’s most animated family – mark i. pinsky (wjk)
• * the gospel according to peanuts – robert l. short (john knox press)
• * volkswagen military vehicles of the third reich: an illustrated history – blaine taylor (da capo)

and from 75% off books:

• * the life of st. francis – bonaventure (harper collins spiritual classics)
• * eyes wide open: looking for G-d in popular culture – william d. romanowski (brazos press)
• * pop goes religion: faith in popular culture – terry mattingly (w publishing group)
• * searching for G-d knows what – donald miller (nelson books)
• * through painted deserts: light, G-d, and beauty on the open road – donald miller (nelson books)
• * xml – magnus stein and ingo dellwig (addison wesley)

(this is the follow-up to the comment about my mom meeting the lady here in houston at a starbucks…)
my mom was adopted. her parents never hid the fact that she was adopted. from the way it was told, they made it into a positive instead of a negative — other parents were stuck with whatever kid they had, my mom was picked. she had always been told her adoption records had burned up in a fire at the hospital or the adoption agency or whatever. evidently that part of the story probably wasn’t quite true.
in the last few years the story expanded to include that a girl had come from out of state (i recall georgia being the state given), had her, then immediately given her up for adoption. turns out that wasn’t quite correct either.
my mom requested her adoption records be opened a few months ago (or maybe it’s been over a year by now). i think you have to wait like 25 years from the adoption date or something, then the judge in the county where the records are has to approve it. so she got those, and there was almost no info. there were two documents she got that had a signature. after she got them she started looking around some, but nothing came of it.
then a couple of weeks ago she picked up the search again. this time she hit pay-dirt. and on the first contact she attempted. turns out her biological mother lived a couple of counties over in Texas. and my mom’s grandfather was german. not sure about the grandmother. i’m not sure if anything is known about my mom’s dad either. but i guess now i know i’m over half german.
it also turns out i’ve got like five half-aunts and half-uncles. or whatever the term is for aunts and uncles from different fathers. that’s kind of weird, considering my mom and dad were both only children, and thus our immediate family tree was very small.
i don’t know that this will change much of anything for me as far as things go, but it is an interesting bit of information to learn about my biological ancestry.
oh yeah…the lady my mom was meeting at the starbucks. she was a women here in houston who saw a post my mom made on a website asking for information. she evidently helps people try to locate their birth parents in her spare time, and had chosen to try and help my mother. my mom wanted to meet her and show her the pics she’d taken with her two sisters (or half-sisters, or whatever), and thank her for helping.

the parents came down thursday. i met up with them at half price books on westheimer near montrose, sometime around 1pm. we then went and ate at angelo’s, which is a german restaurant on montrose just north of westheimer. from there we went to the holocaust museum. i’d parked near it for a year or two but had never gone. it is a pretty powerful statement about goings on before, during, and after world war ii. there’s almost certainly at least one thing there — an object, a picture, etc — that will deeply affect you. it’s also pretty amazing how easy it seems to be to get ordinary people to be involved in committing atrocities while they convince themselves they’re not culpable. we left there around 5pm, so to avoid rush hour traffic we stopped by the west alabama ice house. we hung out there for a couple of hours, then went to james coney island at the corner of shepard and richmond. from there it was off to the half price books in rice village. the evening was finished off with a cup of coffee and a slice of pie at the house of pies.
friday we got up and headed down to galveston. the original plan was to go to moody gardens, but after discussing options we ended up going to the Texas seaport museum. i was mostly interested because on their website they have a database where you can search ship rolls for immigrants, and they talk about immigration to Texas through galveston. unfortunately, the museum itself only has a very small area discussing immigration. the 1877 elissa is docked at the museum also, and that was definitely interesting. i’m not much of a fan of sea culture or the sea though. it doesn’t capture my imagination. i don’t like nautical themes, seafood, etc. after the museum visit, we headed back to houston and went to sylvia’s enchilada. the food was excellent, as usual. my mom planned a meeting with a lady at starbucks (more about that in an upcoming entry), so my dad and i dropped her off and then went by cavender’s and a barnes and noble. afterward, my mom thought it’d be good to grab some microwave popcorn. except i don’t have a microwave. so i went old school and bought a jar of popcorn and some cooking oil. the popping went well. but i didn’t have any butter or salt in the house, so the popcorn was kind of bland. (i live like a true bachelor.) my dad started to look at some of the books he’d bought and my mom and i watched the coen brother’s first film blood simple. i think it’s a great movie, but i don’t think my mom was too excited about it.
saturday we got up and ate brunch at le peep (westheimer and wilcrest). we dropped by 75% off books and whole foods as well, since they are in the same strip center. we then headed back to the house where my parents packed, loaded the water trough from the back yard into their pickup, and headed on their way.
they offered to haul off a bunch of the stuff tamara left behind, but i still feel guilty just tossing it and not going through it. i seriously think one day she may realize how stupid it was of her to leave some of the stuff she did. given what she’s done to me i should probably not care and gleefully burn it in a big bonfire, but most of the time i just don’t have the heart to do it. plus i don’t really feel like it’d give me much satisfaction. yeah, she fscked me over…and over, and over — but it just doesn’t seem to be able to make me stay a sadistic, evil b4st4rd. that only comes in fits and spurts, usually right after she’s done something new to me, or i’m having to deal with some painful issue that’s a result of her actions. but those moments don’t last, and usually i don’t accomplish much in the way of dastardly deeds during those phases — i’m more likely to just fume and scream for awhile, then break down and cry and wish this all weren’t really happening. i’m much more evil and sadistic in my mind than most anything that ever sees the light of day.

saturday evening i was originally planning to go to bryan/college station to see atarimatt (two atari 2600 systems, some custom cartridges and software, and a couple of old tvs…bleepin’ rock’n’roll) and the sk-1 project, but i couldn’t find anyone to go with me so i decided to stay in town.
instead, i was treated to an evening of music at the continental club by two tons of steel (thanks jay!). i’d gone to their website in the past and listened to a few tracks — i thought they sounded okay but sort of average, so i never went to a show while they were in town. i was wrong. they put on a great show. their steel guitar player wasn’t there because evidently he (like herb remington) is a legend and is thus on the older side and doesn’t enjoy staying out until 7am. (the band is from around san antonio.) but they had a stand-up bass, guitar, drummer, and acoustic/singer. they were energetic and sounded good. it probably also helped that a dance class had sent out a mass mailing to show up to dance, so there were a lot of people dancing (mostly pretty well) the whole evening.
the oddest thing occurred though. about an hour into their set i was watching them and i suddenly thought “hey…that drummer looks familiar.” the more i thought about it, the more sure i got. i mentioned it to jay and judith (a friend of jay’s who was there). later in the set he took his boots off to play the set in his socks, and it even made me even more positive it was him. after their show, when the singer came off the stage jay went over and asked him what his drummer’s name was. he came back and said “yep, that’s him!” so when the drummer was getting off the stage, jay said “hey, do you recognize your friend here?” and i said “i’m terry…” and he responded “yeah, you’re linc’s brother!”
it was chris dodds, who played drums for love coma with chris taylor, and also played some for matt slocum (who had been in love coma) on tour when he was later doing sixpence none the richer. he’s evidently been in two tons of steel for about five years, if i recall correctly. i hadn’t seen him since probably 1991 or 1992 or something…at least between 10 and 15 years. we talked a little while, then he had to break down. that was a pretty weird experience, running into him randomly like that.
after the show i also talked with the lead singer for awhile and went ahead and picked up their most recent release, two ton tuesday live! (from gruene hall). it’s two discs — a cd and a dvd.
monday after work i called up brad and he and kelli and i rode over to the alabama ice house and hung out there a few hours. later we were joined by jason and a friend of his. then later we all went over to late night pie and had a bite to eat. you know, brad and kelli and jason are really cool folk, and i like hanging out with them and riding around. it’s just pleasent and fun. it’s too bad tamara didn’t stick around to enjoy things like this.
tonight after work i headed over to jay and cynthia’s. it was a great evening — good food and good company.

just wanted to mention that the new pic at the top of my blog is real and not doctored in any way. that is my house, and there is a “dead end” sign in the front yard of my house. it was one of a number of things tamara and i didn’t notice about the house until after we’d moved in. at the time i liked to joke about the sign being in our front yard. (if you hadn’t noticed, i kind of have a fascination with failure and like to play up failure and slacking.) over time, it became true more than just funny. although it’s still funny, if you have the right kind of sense of humour.

before i went to bed early due to the trauma experienced by the self-induced smoothie explosion, i took possession of an order from amazon friday night when i got home. the contents were:

• * body piercing saved my life: inside the phenomenon of christian rock by andrew beaujon (de capo press)
• * winning 42 – strategy and lore of the national game of Texas by dennis roberson (Texas tech university press)
• * true stories directed by david byrne, music by the talking heads (warner brothers)

i think i caught wind of the christian rock book via one of the occasional jaunts i make over to the usenet group rec.music.christian to see what if anything is going on. there was a link to a review of the book, and i thought it sounded like interesting reading material. as with the book on mars hill, i’m not sure how i’ll feel about the perspective — but this one seems like it’ll have less of an agenda or predisposition toward dislike or distrust. in either case, i think it’ll make for interesting reading.
i’d noticed the 42 book awhile back when i was searching for dominoes online. since i’ve not played very much 42 in my life and don’t know hardly anyone around me that plays, i figured this might be a good way for me to get some more knowledge about it.
true stories is one of the dvds the pot-smoking kids stole when they broke into my house a number of months ago. i keep hoping at some point someone will put out a better release of this film — like a widescreen version instead of rape-n-scrape, along with a bunch of extras and such — but so far no luck.
saturday morning around 11am i was awakened by the sound of my front door being opened. apparently i had my phone on vibrate, so i hadn’t heard the calls from the listing people calling to tell me about appointments they’d lined up. once i got up and left the house so they could come and look at it without me being here, i checked my voicemail and heard someone had made an appointment for 9:30am to 10:30am. egads, i’m glad they didn’t make it! i managed to get a really good amount of sleep friday night. (probably due to exhaustion from the smoothie incident.)
to kill time, i headed over to border’s. while there i picked up:

• * brazil (the final cut) – terry gilliam (criterion)
• * star wars (episode iv: a new hope) – george lucas (20th century fox)

i’ve been planning on getting brazil for a long time, i just never got around to it. it’s a great film. this edition of star wars is the “limited edition” widescreen version that contains the digitally remastered version and the original theatrical version. so at least i’ve finally got the original version on dvd. although i don’t think this version is actually the true original version. i still remember a couple of scenes from when i saw it back in the theater in the day (in san antonio, while we were visiting my grandmother who was in the hospital there with cancer) that weren’t in any of the “original theatrical” versions since. lucas and his 500 different versions (original, limited, etc) of everything is kind of annoying too. it almost makes me glad i liked each movie less and less, so i don’t have to think about buying the last three.
today there were more showings of the house, so i ended up going to border’s again today and picked up:

• * personal file – johnny cash (columbia/legacy)
• * blues masters: the very best of lightnin’ hopkins – lightnin’ hopkins (rhino)

i’ve been planning on buying the cash set since it came out, i just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. and i really like lightnin’ hopkins a lot, but i’ve only got the aladdin cd set of his. lightnin’ was a legendary Texas country blues artist who spent most of his years in houston, and when my mind creates the platonic form of a blues singer, he’s the one i hear.
due to another showing, i also went by boot town and picked up a couple of pearl snap shirts.
i hope the weekend and evening showings stop soon, or i’m going end up in debt. although i’ll have a nice dvd and cd collection.

friday after work i stopped by jamba juice for one of their all fruit smoothies. i was in my pickup, so there are no drink holders. it doesn’t come standard with any form of holder, and i’ve not bought anything. i’ve got a 1965 ford f-100 for G-d’s sake! drink holders are for sissies!
what’s that? okay, so jamba juice isn’t exactly the height of masculinity. let’s move on, please. anyway, this state of affairs has led to several spills so far. in fact, i’m beginning to think my pickup has a drinking problem. but back to the story…
while turning onto westheimer, my barely consumed all fruit smoothie tipped over in the seat next to me. fortunately, it didn’t spill. unfortunately, the next time i sucked on the straw i was met with gurgling noises and air in my mouth instead of the sweet sensation of a jamba juice all fruit smoothie. thus i learned the straw broke, meaning i had no suction through it. as i was driving i decided to see if i could figure out where and how many holes there were. i covered the places i felt air coming out and blew into the straw. well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next. my success at covering all holes in the straw was rewarded by a huge growing bubble of air at the bottom of the all fruit smoothie, which pushed the lid off, and a large splotch was deposited right in the center of my mechanic shirt. brilliant! this large mass of escaped smoothie slowly ran down the center of my shirt and onto my…uh…pants…while i was driving. plus i forgot to mention it was sprinkling/raining, so i was having to turn the wipers on now and then. and i was driving a standard. all while trying to hold the styrofoam cup with all fruit smoothie inside, outside, top, and bottom. i’ve got no cup holder, you see.
so…here i am, attempting to change gears, steer, turn the wipers on and off, and hold a smoothie (that i can’t drink through the straw), while cold smoothie is melting and sliding down my shirt and onto my pants and the seat, and i’m getting smoothie on everything i touch. i finally decide enough is enough and i begin unbuttoning my shirt to try to get the quite chilly smoothie off of my chest and direct its downhill descent toward the outside of my legs instead of my…uh…pants. i’ll have to admit here that i’m not known for my toned physique. nor for my full body tan. in fact, i’m not sure i can remember the last time someone saw me with my shirt off (excepting doctors and my ex-wife). i’m a modest, pastey white, out of shape fellow, okay? i’ve also got freaking all fruit smoothie all over myself, so i’m not exactly excited about things. i just want to get home.
at this point, a guy walked up to my passenger side while i was at a stoplight and started asking for a ride for a couple of blocks because the city bus he was on broke down. my door was locked and the window was rolled up, but he was persistent. he knocked on the window. he tried the door handle. he pleaded. he even offered me $20. (as if.) the whole time i’m sitting there with an exploded all fruit smoothie everywhere and my shirt unbuttoned, and i’m just thinking “G-d, you have got one sick sense of humor.” in my confusion, he ended up getting in the back of the pickup and i dropped him off a few blocks later. eventually i made it home, got out of my all fruit smoothie soiled clothes (which i think included everything except my socks), and went to bed.
i think maybe i’ll look around for some kind of drink holder here sometime soon.