Okey, moved again. Now it's temporarily at http://www.stationinthemetro.com/boblog/. In the not-too-distant future, the blog will be integrated into the fabric of the main Station in the Metro site, so please go visit http://www.stationinthemetro.com/.

Minor note: http://www.boszko.com is now on its way to becoming fully dedicated to my kids' family history and genealogy.

That's it, really. I don't think I'm going to bother to update this page again. Unless, of course, I do. Thanks for watching!

Okey, I can't seem to finad any way to get rid of this old blog, so let it be known that my current blog, boblog, has moved slightly, and is now at http://www.boszko.com/boblog. That is all.

I've moved the blog to my new self-hosted server at http://www.boszko.com. All new posts will be there, and I'll be deleting this blog page on January 1st, 2003. Thanks, and enjoy!

This morning, when I came in to work at NIH (the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, MD), everyone was on alert. Well, really, we've been on alert since a year ago. Right after the terrorist attacks, NIH went on super-high-ultra-alert, and was performing car and bag searches on everyone, every day. I had to get a new ID badge, and get a special pass for my car, so they would let me pass without the 3rd degree. Eventually, the ordeal to get to work for me, as an employee, was reduced to a manageable degree— flash your badge at the gate, drive in, flash your badge at the door, and that's it.

Until yesterday.

I wasn't here yesterday, but when I came in today, cars were once again subject to random searches, and now apparently two forms of ID are required to get anywhere. Since I park in a garage under one of the buildings, my car was also hand-searched today instead of the usual wipe of my steering wheel with a special cloth that lets them tell if I've been near explosives lately. They had me pop the hood and the trunk, and they opened my glove box. The thing is… they didn't really look.

That's why I'm pissed off about this whole resurgence in so-called vigilance. So, someone higher up decreed that security must be stepped up because an arbitrary period of time has passed since the terrorist attacks last year. Out of fear of inept copy-catters, I suppose, since I would think anyone smart enough to plan an effective terrorist attack would not plan to do so on the one day out of the year when we're most reminded of them, and most aware and suspicious.

Anyway, beyond faulty reasoning, the way the increased security is being implemented is effectively just for show. The way the guards searched my car, I could have had massive amounts of explosives or weaponry in there, moderately well hidden, and they never would have known. No bomb-snifffing dogs. No high-tech handi-wipe. Hell, I could have just had it inside my bright red backback, which no one bothered to search at any point. The two forms of ID is also a joke. Sure, it'll stop the casual scam artist (or the guy who left his wallet in the car), but anyone with any intelligence and a decent inkjet printer at home could, in about an hour, build a fake ID that would completely fool the tired glances that they're given at any point along the chain.

That's why I'm pissed. Why waste my time with these added secrity measures if they're not effective? Maybe they are just for show, to make some people feel safer. Me? I don't feel safer. I feel maybe I should start charging time for my day as soon as my car hits the backup from the check in gate. Maybe then at least I won't feel like I'm getting ripped off.

Earlier this evening, I went out to get a ReplayTV and bring it home. Silly me.

If you've never heard of it, it's a lot like a TiVo. Records TV onto a hard drive for later viewing, lets you pause live TV, things like that. In short, very cool stuff. The electronics chain Tweeter is the only place that carries it in my area, so I bop down to the local one on my way home. A guy there spends about 15 minutes trying to set it up to demo for me. I wouldn't have bothered, but I figured since a friend of mine has a TiVo, I might as well play with the menus a bit-- you know, compare and contrast.

Anyway... he eventually gets it set up. I play with it for 45 seconds. I say, "Okay, I'll take it." We go over to his little cashier stand, and discover that they're all sold out. The next closest store (a half hour away-- we'll call it "store #2") has one, but it's being held for a customer. No other store in Maryland has it, but some ones in Pennsylvania do. "Oh, great," I think. I'm told they can have a truck swing by there and transfer one to my local store in only 7 days! "Even better," I think, and ask them to let me sleep on it. It's Friday night, and I wanna play with my new toy over the weekend. I'm betting that I can have it shipped to me tomorrow if I order it over the web... so home I go.

Halfway home, it occurs to me that maybe it's getting a little late in the day for getting a web order rushed out for Saturday delivery. So I get ReplayTV's phone number, and call. "No way we could get that out for Saturday delivery," the guy on the other end of the line admonishes me. "It takes 24 to 48 hours of processing before we could even ship it overnight." I find myself wondering what they do to it during that processing time. Is this company so attached to their products that they have to throw every shipment a going-away party?

When I get home, I call Tweeter store #2. "Are you sure you have to hold that one for someone else?" I ask. He assures me they do, but informs me that several other stores in Maryland do, in fact, have them in stock, including one in Tweeter store #3, about an hour away. "Fine," I say, "will they hold it for me?" He tells me to call them and ask. I do. They will. An hour later, I am the proud owner of a box that says "ReplayTV" all over it. Tired, and finally satisfied, I head back home.

So... the ReplayTV is here. It's in my house. It's out of the box. It's set up. It's unusable.

That's right. Apparently my particular unit wasn't informed of the 10-day grace period that you're supposed to have before you must activate your service. Oh yeah-- I forgot to mention. Beyond paying for the unit itself, you also have to pay for the privilege of downloading your local TV listings into your unit. Anyway, instead of 10 fun-filled days of free service after completing all the setup, I get to look at this:



Yep.

Uh-huh.

So, I try calling their 800-number to activate it, but they're only open M-F 8:30am-5:00pm PST. No dice.

Then, I figure, "Hey, maybe their Web store thing is automated," so I go on the web, and pay for the activation. "Congratulations!" they say. "Thank you for activating the service on your ReplayTV!" they say. "ReplayTV can no longer be used until you activate your service," my ReplayTV still says.

The confirmation email includes a promising-looking "Activation Key" number. There is no place to plug this in on the screen that tells me that my several hundred dollars worth of electronics is useless until after a few Californians have had a nice, peaceful weekend, probably watching recorded programs on their own ReplayTVs. All I can do on that screen is click "OK", as if somehow the upbeat, positive term "OK" will make me feel better about the whole thing. Buttons on windows like that shouldn't say "OK," they should have something more appropriate, like "Well, Crap," or perhaps "Bugger ME!".

So, I resign myself to thinking maybe-- just maybe, my ReplayTV will contact their servers later tonight, and realize the silly mistake it made, and I will wake up to a gloriously restored ReplayTV in the morning.

Yeah, right.

More likely, some poor ReplayTV rep is gonna get an earful from me about their stupid, crappy, stupid, stupid machine, and how I had to wait until Monday to start using it, because I sure as hell wasn't gonna drive all the way back to Tweeter store #3 just to return it with righteous indignation-- never mind the fact that I'll probably end up liking it a lot once I'm able to actually use it. :P

::sigh::

Oh well.

At least it's a very pretty silver box. Matches my TV quite nicely.

Bastards.

Today the office know-it-all/nag/dolt/snitch (yes, this is all one person) was asking me about a monitor which ended up in her work area. It happened to "belong" to me, and I had put it down in that room as temporary storage long before it had become her space. Once she found out it was mine, she started going on and on about what I should have done, and what the proper procedure was to give up a monitor, and having politely withstood enough crap from her before, I interrupted her, and said "Look, stop lecturing me. If you want me to come and move it, just ask me to come and move it." She then (finally!) actually asked for what she wanted, and I said "Fine, I'll be there in a minute," and hung up.

When I got down the hall, and was about to go in and get the monitor, she was all in my face, pointing her finger and wagging her head (in that way that African American women seem to have the unique ability of doing), and saying things about me giving her attitude. I was very calm, and pointed out that I wasn't giving her any attitude, which... somehow made her more upset. Another lady in the office (who doesn't take crap from anyone) got in front of her, repeating "Stop." which led to the first woman repeatedly saying "Get offa me!" I calmly went in and retrieved the monitor and left.

It was all very surreal.

I'm sick of taking crap from her, especially since she knows next to nothing about video production and post-production, yet when educated opinions are required in meetings, she's always the most vocal with her uneducated ones. So, in a way it was kinda nice to have her lash out at me in public like that. Maybe other people will start noticing how nuts she is. :P

Beekeeper Cartoon Amusements: Comix by Jason Little. The "Bee" comic is amazing. I read straight through all the back pages, right up to what is currently a nailbiting cliffhanger (p.61). Read it! NOW!!