Airports and David Byrne

I'm in the Cleveland airport traveling for business. It is a nice clean
terminal and I hva e a nice cup of coffee. We got here early so that
just added to long layover.
Right before I left got David Byrne's Grown Backwards but haven't
listened to it untill now. Its a good CD so far but better in an
airport. Both are terribly interesting and slightly absurd. Maybe it
is his voice that fits the venue. I don't know but I'm enjoying it.
Wonder if he has ever considered a concert in one. That would be cool.
If you timed it right you could get there and see it with out ever
leaving the security zone. Not exactly ecologically responsible but
very absurd.

The Year of Blame

Just before the new year, The Bat and I were at a nicer seafood joint in a nicer part of town. We had been there before and ate a lovely meal of fried everything. We don't eat fried food that often, but this was a nice treat. Non-greasy fried food is hard to come by. The second time around was good, but not as good as the first.

The couple in an adjacent booth had ordered a bottle of wine and it came out in an ice bucket. This wine bucket was on a stand (I've never seen a table top model) in the aisle by their table. A woman who was leaving plowed into it, sending ice and wine all over the floor. Everyone just stared at it for a bit. The woman said "Well who put that there?" What the hell? That's where wine buckets go moron. The guy who was with the woman picked the bottle up and said, "Oh, there wasn't much in it." Sure, not after your water buffalo of a wife knocked it over. The couple then just shuffled out. After a minute the waiter came by to clean up and got them two glasses of replacement wine. So all ended well.

I was clearly (sarcasm) not her fault and even it was no big loss, it was empty anyway. They should have offered to replace the wine. Hell, they should have at least apologized.

This made me realize no one takes blame any more. Everything is some one else's fault or the situation is to blame or it is a flaw in the materials. Sure sometimes it is these things, but some times it is just YOU. Maybe you put yourself in that situation or you were using something out of spec.

So I ask you, in 2008, stop and consider that it might just be YOUR FAULT. If it is, be a decent human being and own it. Don't blame God or Fate or Luck or the Force.

Pobricita Hard Drive

On Friday my hard drive of five-ish years crashed.

I think I had that reaction of everyone this happens to: I should have backed up. Ah well, shouldn't cry over spilled milk. I didn't loose that much and I still have yet to see if I might be able to get into it to see what I can recover. I think I will have lost some photos, documents (all my library stuff certainly) and a slew of half-played game saves.

But it's Sunday now and all is well. I've installed a new HD in this gracefully aging rig. Thankfully I was able to install all my drivers and software of the internet and I even uploaded all my music from my Vision:M. Warcraft took the most time to reinstall; that is one huge program. I'm going to try to use open source stuff instead of using various Adobe products, but I don't know how far I'll get with that. And I still have to work on my sound car; I can't seem to get back the same functionality I had before.

So I've resolved to move most of my data to Google Docs or Notebook. I'll need to get my del.icio.us account up to date to take my bookmarks. That way not much will be on my computer. But the stuff that is there, I'll back up. Promise.