RJ45 jack on Lappy broken. That’s bad.

But it’s under warranty, so Dell will fix it. That’s good.

It has to go to Newmarket, Ontario. That’s bad.

But Dell will pick up all the costs associated with shipping! That’s good.

It will take up to 1.5 weeks for the repair to be completed. That’s bad.

But it actually came back today (Friday), after being sent out on Wednesday! That’s good.

Unfortunately, it came back even more broken than it went out. That’s bad.

I give Dell props for fixing it fast. We’re talking about a sub-48 hour turnaround time; my box made it to Newmarket at 9:44 on Thursday (according to the tag on the machine), and Purolator had it again nine hours later according to the tracking information. Apparently, since it’s been a long time since I moved anything by air courier services in this country, I had forgotten how frickin’ fast these things can be. (And, let’s face it, getting something from Victoria to Toronto is not like getting something from Victoria to, I dunno, Inuvik or whatever.) So that’s pretty cool. But somewhere along the line, something didn’t go quite right — a cable got banged loose, the LCD got jostled, something happened that made Lappy arrive dead. Well, not exactly dead; I am, after all, typing this entry on it. But the LCD will glow as though someone has applied power, but will not actually display an image. When it does display an image, it flickers, like the cable’s not seated properly. But the cable is seated properly, because I checked (it’s amazing what you can accomplish with a phone tech and a screwdriver). So back to Newmarket it goes.

I have high hopes that this will fix the problem in a suitably speedy manner, and that I will get my machine back by, oh, say, Wednesday next week. Because that would be sweet. Because I’m going away on Sunday next week, and then I’m going to have to play follow the package, and that’s never fun. So there’s always hope. In the meantime, it’s nice to have Lappy back, even if I have to use an external monitor (thus more or less rednering the whole point of having a laptop, um, moot).

Have I mentioned I hate computers lately? I do. I really, really do.

Evolution of Ichiro:

The fourth version of the Ichiro Suzuki bobblehead doll was unveiled to its living likeness last night, and the Mariners’ star right fielder was none too impressed.

Striking a pose with his cap doffed, the new bobblehead will be given out tomorrow night to the first 25,000 fans through the gate, to commemorate Ichiro’s record-setting 262-hit season last year.

Fixing a glare at the doll in the dugout before batting practice, Ichiro pushed its head so it was shaking back and forth instead of up and down. “I say, ‘No, No, No,’ ” Ichiro said. “I don’t say, ‘Yes, yes, yes.'”

Ichiro cracks me up.

Thieves removing gas from vehicles:

Police are warning motorists to lock up their gas tanks.

The recent boost in gas prices, now over $1 a litre at many Greater Victoria gas stations, has prompted thieves to target unwary car owners by siphoning gas.

Saanich police report that gas thefts have been reported in the Ker Avenue and Glanford Avenue areas.

They urge motorists to invest in locking gas caps to deter thieves. Police also suggest car owners park as close to their homes as possible.

It’s a crime spree!

So as a temporizing measure to solve my network connectivity problems at home (the Lappy will, as expected, have to go into the depot in Newmarket, fucking Ontario, for servicing — more later), I went out this afternoon and bought a D-Link DI-524 wireless router. I didn’t really need another router — I really just needed an access point — but I’m cheap, and it was on sale (with a rebate that makes it less than $50 at the local Electronics R Us). Given how much fun I have when I configure consumer grade networking gear I was expecting a fight.

Most of the time, I freely admit this is my own fault. I’m too damn stubborn to read the idiot manuals, and I figure I ought to be able to plug it in and have things work, or at least be able to hack around the “user friendly” components and make it do what I want it to do. For instance, like I said, the DI-524 is a router. I already have a router on my network. It works very nicely. I suppose I could rip it out and replace it with the DI-524, but I don’t want to do that; my network works just fine, and the less time I spend screwing around with my configuration, the happier I’m going to be (since it’s less likely to break that way). I fully expected the DI-524 to fight for gateway control, and start arguing with the other hosts on the network that provide DHCP service for the entire environment, and make me figure out how to talk directly to it to disable the dumb shit through its inevitably craptacular Web interface.

But much to my surprise, when I plugged it in, it found there was already a local DHCP service operating. And, moreover, that said local DHCP service would assign it an IP address without having to do any stupid negotiating. And, moreover, that it already had a non-standard subnet (I don’t, for historical reasons, use 192.168.1.0/24 as my internal netblock), and so it should just grab an address in that /24. And that it should probably pass DHCP requests from clients on to my original DHCP server. So when Lappy’s list of wireless networks was refreshed, and it connected automatically (we’ll have to do something about that), the request for an address and routing information went straight to the network’s DHCP server, and everything is sweetness and light.

It might be the first time I’ve ever had any piece of networking gear Just Work right out of the box. Hot diggity damn, I love this thing. Did I mention it’s 802.11g? Yeah, it’s 802.11g. 0wned.

I’d really like it if we could get to a form of civic discourse where the reasonable — and perfectly understandable — response to someone’s idiotic blathering were not simply to say, “Fuck you,” and walk away.

Whether that would come because the discourse got better, or because the response got better, I’m not too picky about. I’d just like to get to that place.

3F04. Fiction. 1995. It looked like this:

Kirk Van Houten: Er, I, for one, would like to see the cafeteria menus in advance, so parents can adjust their dinner menus accordingly. I don’t like the idea of Milhouse having two spaghetti meals in one day.

Few other events in the Simpsons universe so perfectly captured the essence of Kirk Van Houten. I love that line, coming as it does in the middle of a wholly unremarkable Treehouse of Horror episode. It was the fabulous combination of being true to a character and being entirely nonsensical in the context of the real world — the sort of thing that the Simpsons used to excel at.

France. Real life. 2005:

Menus for the week are posted on school notice boards so parents can plan appropriate evening meals; many town councils also put them their website.

I guess Kirk was French.

(What do French kids eat? They eat like this. Wow, I don’t eat that well.)

So the Lappy’s Ethernet port is.. kinda br0ked. It’s not totally fux0red, mind you, just fux0red enough that it can make talking to the home network a bit of a pain in the ass. It usually takes a good four or five minutes of wrangling to ensure the cable has good contact with the connectors inside the port, and/or the connectors themselves have good contact with the Magic Voodoo Bus. I have in the past found the balloon pop-ups in XP to be endlessly annoying (especially the one that pops up every time I start the machine without a wireless connection that says “Wireless connection unavailable” — no shit!), but I have come to have a love-hate relationship with the balloon that says, “A network cable is unplugged.”

The first thing I think is, “Oh, good, I know that when my network requests fail, I’ll know why.” The second thing I think is, “oh, fuck, now I have to mess around with the cabling for a while.”

I had high hopes that this problem involved cabling. Most of my Cat 5 cable in my place is stuff I cut and crimped by hand, so there were thoughts that it might be, um, my own damn fault that I couldn’t get a good connection to the LAN. Maybe the connectors were cracking, or the pins inside flexing, but, alas, no: The cables are just fine (I tested them). It’s the Lappy, and in particular it’s a part of the Lappy that is probably (a) not cheap to fix and (b) not likely to be field-fixable.

One of the dangers of buying a laptop, as I’m sure almost everyone knows, is that it lockes you into a relationship with a vendor. I’ve been hacking too long to have anything but the dimmest possible view of vendors; when I have component-level failures, I want to be able to replace the component with another one, preferably made by someone whose products don’t suck (or which, at least, suck a lot less than the vendor whose product failed). Meaning that if my 3Com NIC decides to pack it in, I can simply swap it out and shove a new one in (probably another 3Com, since I like the damn things so much, and they don’t tend to break, period). Severing the vendor tie was and is one of the most wonderful things about PC ownership.

Arguably it is also the only wonderful thing about PC ownership, since it forces you to take responsibility for the entire machine. If you’re rich or value your time, having a vendor relationship is great because you can get them to take responsibility for your system from start to finish. Machine won’t boot? Here comes field circus. Hard drive craps out? Here comes field circus. I’ve been hacking too long to have anything but the dimmest possible view of field circus guys, too, but it’s tough to explain to some clueless VP (or spouse) that you’re going to toss your new-ish machine into a swamp because fixing it is too much of a pain; far better to have the Man From Maytag tell you you need a new washer than your idiot husband.

Owning a vendorless PC is possible, even preferable. Owning a vendorless laptop is not. While I’m currently on my second Dell (not because the first one broke, mind you, but because I sold it to someone else and used a loyalty incentive to get myself a much nicer machine), I’ve never had to deal with them once I finished shoving money at them at the end of the initial transaction. I tell people who buy laptops to invest in the extended service plan simply because component replacement is hard, and if it fails, it’s going to fail big — I have a friend who is on (I think) her third or fourth Compaq, and I shudder to think what the replacement costs would have been like had she not had the warranty options she does. (I also don’t think she’s likely to buy another Compaq, but that’s neither here nor there.)

But now, with Lappy’s Ethernet port failing, I am about to embark on a trip into the depths of Dell’s customer service department. Will this be fixable easily? Will Lappy have to go on a plane ride? How much is it going to cost me, if anything? How long will I be without Lappy? Will my data be safe? (We’ve reached the point where backup strategies are t-o-u-g-h to implement, so be judicious about it.) How much fighting am I going to have to put up with in order to make this work? I don’t know, and I’m afraid to find out.

This may be why I’m seriously considering door #2, which is to simply go and buy an 802.11g AP and stick that in here instead. Why fix the damn Ethernet port when you can hack your way around it? (Answer: because sometimes you can get Cat 5 connections but can’t get wireless ones. Potential solution: Buy an AP that’s portable enough that you can bring it with you. I know these exist, because I used one in Japan (not that it worked, mind you), but have yet to encounter any in North America. Any tips for me, Lazyweb?)

She told me her name was Cymbeline
I met her at the corner of Church and Queen
She was selling lies and other patined things
I hardly even noticed when she touched my ring

She sold me a camera for a song
A silver instamatic made in Bonn
Careful with my heart, it’s not very strong
She wrote that on the border when I was wrong

She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
Half a mile from Texas, she looked at me and said,
“Everybody loves you when you’re dead.”

I can drive for hours when I’m wrong
She said it like a preacher before the throng
Careful with your life ’cause it’s not very long
We stumble for a moment and then we’re gone

She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
Half a mile from Memphis, she looked at me and said,
“Everybody loves you when you’re dead.”

I think I’ll take her bishop with my queen
The glass is nearly empty and she’s asleep
Somewhere in my mind I think I see her weep
Perhaps I’ll check the silver before I leave

She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
Half a mile from Paris, she looked at me and said,
“Everybody loves you when you’re dead.”
–The Wild Strawberries

This guy is totally my hero.

I want off this planet:

CRANFORD: I have been at the bedside of these patients. I know what they die from. I’ve seen them die. And this is all bogus. It’s all just a bunch of crap that you are saying. It’s totally wrong.

DANIELS: Well, with all due respect, Doctor, it sounds like you think that you know what you are talking about, so let’s ask you about that. …

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second. Hold on a second. You’re so sure of yourself — respond to this. AP had a report yesterday. They said seven doctors have looked at her. Four said she was in persistent vegetative state. You were one of them, hired by Michael Schiavo to do that. There were three others that looked at her that disagreed. How can you be so absolutely sure that everybody that agrees with you is 100 percent accurate and everybody on the other side is a charlatan?

CRANFORD: Joe, Judge — Judge [George W.] Greer disallowed, didn’t believe what [Dr. William] Maxfield [a doctor selected by Terri Schiavo’s parents] said. You got your numbers wrong. There were eight neurologists saw her. Seven of the eight said she was in a vegetative state. Only one said she wasn’t.

SCARBOROUGH: I am quoting an Associated Press report from yesterday.

CRANFORD: Joe, you’ve got to get your facts straight.

SCARBOROUGH: I have got my facts straight.

CRANFORD: Get your facts straight. You’ve got your facts way off.

I’m sorry, but what the hell is this? A television reporter is telling a neurologist that he sounds like he thinks he knows what he’s talking about. A TV reporter is accusing a physician of not having his facts straight, when the facts in question are trivially easy to determine. A shouting head, one of the most irritating creatures we’ve managed to create in recent years, and someone who has managed to make a career out of impugning everyone who disagrees with him, is wondering how another person can “be so absolutely sure that … everybody on the other side is a charlatan.” And, you know, the one doctor who agrees with Joe is right, and the other seven guys who agree with Cranford — the one dude, he’s the genius; the other seven guys, they’re all wet. Right? Right.

You have got to be kidding me. This is what passes for journalism? No wonder this case is all screwed up from a perception standpoint — we treat it as though each position were an equally valid position, and that it’s just a matter of opinion. I fully expect the next time Buzz Aldrin gets interviewed on TV, he’s going to have to sit next to some jackass who thinks the moon landing was faked:

HACK: So, Dr. Aldrin, it sounds like you think you’re something of an expert on the moon.

ALDRIN: I am an expert on the moon. I’ve been there. I know the other people who went there. You can see my boot print in the lunar dust.

HACK: But how do you explain Bill Kaysing’s claim that you can’t see the stars in the photographs you allegedly took while there? I can see the stars at night on the earth when it’s dark in the sky; it’s dark in the sky on the moon, so why can’t we see the stars?

ALDRIN: Well, Hack, we were on the moon in early lunar morning —

HACK: Wait a minute, but the moon doesn’t have a time of day, because it never changes its face relative to the earth. So it doesn’t turn. It’s suppose —

ALDRIN: Get your facts straight. The moon rotates.

HACK: I don’t think so. I never see the far side of the moon. No one has. Everyone knows that.

[crosstalk]

ALDRIN: [agitated] No, the moon rotates. Like I said, we were out there in full sunlight, and the cameras aren’t sensitive enough — you can’t take a picture of a dim object in full sunlight when you’re also trying to capture objects lit by the —

HACK: Hold on a second. Hold on a second. You’re so sure of this — how is it that you’re so sure of this, when other people — smart people, reasonable people — can talk about this rationally, without getting angry, without punching other people in the nose — how do you respond to these reasonable and measured people who claim that you never went there, and that you and your colleagues were engaged in a massive conspiracy to defraud the United States of billions of dollars and perpetrate a hoax?

ALDRIN: I was there. You weren’t.

HACK: Well, that’s certainly your opinion, Dr. Aldrin, and you’re entitled to it. It is just an opinion, after all. Thank you for your time. Coming up next, why conservatives are persecuted for their beliefs: We talk to oppressed minority Bill O’Reilly about the hardships of being white, rich, and male in American society. And now, a word from Pfizer.

I used to joke that journalism barely rated above lawyering in terms of the popular impression of the profession. I’m starting to think that journalism barely rates above venture capitalism.

(See also: perpetual rant that “opinion” now seems to mean “a baseless statement that should not be criticized on the grounds that it is baseless.”)