Saint Mercurius and Artemius of Antioch

Same source as below.

Greek Fire

Greek fire. Courtesy of a star OP at 4chan-200 MB of varied Medieval (and before and after) prints and such. Thought I'd get something up before my coming sojourn to Pittsburgh.

Sound Card Fun

The picture has nothing to do with the post.

Again, more as a reminder for me, although this might help someone else. I installed a Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card recently. Sound did improve greatly over the onboard thing but there was mouse stutter and the occasional mouse freeze. I'd been using a PS2 connection for the mouse but that was mysteriously killed by the card, so I was using a USB port.

Tried moving the mouse around to other ports. Tried moving the card to another open slot. Nothing. Creative tech support suggested going into the BIOS and there were some online fixes that required editing the registry. I didn't like either idea. The Creative card and my nVidia 9500 GT card were sharing the same IRQ and that was leading to the backup on the mouse.

Just about when I was going to pull the card and send it back, I uninstalled my mouse drivers, then plugged in the mouse that came with this HP desktop. That installed new drivers (although both list generic drivers in Device Manager). I hate the HP mouse, plugged back in my generic (so generic that there's no manufacturer listed on the underside of the mouse) optical mouse.

No stuttering for five days. Changed the IRQ enough that it's no longer a problem. I'm not nearly smart enough to know exactly why but I am smart enough to not look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

If this helps you, excellent.

SPC ECO

SOn a happier note (see below for the unhappy), with some free time, I checked to see if any of the main figures from Curve was doing anything. I was happy to discover that Dean Garcia has been pretty active and released an album last year as SPC ECO (which is pronounced Space Echo). It's superb-anyone who was into Curve will want this album-the vocals are by Rose Berlin, who has a lovely voice. This project is closer to Seefeel, which is an endorsement from me.

And not a client, I need to add. The album-cover above-is 3-D.

RE/MAX Kansas City = Phone Spammers

Last week, during dinner, my phone rang. Seeing that the caller was "REMAX KS CITY" and I'm neither buying or selling a house, I let it ring. Instead of a desperate real estate broker, I got some guy reading (badly) a script on behalf of some political candidate into my voicemail. I'm not even going to name the candidate because that's not the point of the offense.

The problem here is making a political call under false pretenses. It's not Remax Kansas City calling, it's a political weasel and that's dishonest. Given the miserable state of residential real estate, why a broker would alienate potential customers is one of those mysteries aren't answered until the company closes.

I gave 'em a chance to apologize via email. They failed. Google says it's "RE/MAX Realty Suburban" and the agent is Paula Maze. So, add 816-777-5441 to your list of blocked numbers because it's the source of spam calls.

Sandman

I was going to write something long and probably boring about baseball and pitching motions but I'm skipping it other than to note that Albert Pujols was happy to stand up with Glenn Beck but wouldn't return the call of the National Negro Baseball Museum. Karma will strike, it always does. (source: Sam Mellinger's Twitter, on Pujols, not karma)

Which leads me to happier news and weirdly connected-meaning karma and Sandman. Hollywood Reporter sez that there's prelim development of a series. Happiness at the thought, immense fear thinking about all the things that could go so very wrong. When I first read Killer Angels years and years ago, I imagined how good a mini-series could be. Then the movie came out. They tried. Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee? Really? With Jason Robards alive?

Link: http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/09/comic-icon-the-sandman-tv-series-in-works.html#more-7580

Still, first priority has to be Clint Eastwood as Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond. Elect me cultural czar and it'll happen.

CMV Negative

This is here as much as a way of keeping this within memory as anything else. I donated blood today, as I do every eight weeks and one of the nurses noted that I was CMV Negative, or what they call a baby blood donor. I knew the baby blood part-they'd told me a few years ago-and even told me why, but since my usual habit is to gorge on BBQ, then sleep for three hours after donating, the technical explanation was always gone from my memory.

Today, I jotted down CMV- on some of the informational material and after a lunch of burnt ends from Arthur Bryant's, looked it up. It means I've never been infected with cytomegalovirus. For most people with healthy immune systems-like me-CMV is no big deal. For people without a normal immune system, it's a problem. This would include newborns and HIV+ individuals, among others.

If you're reading this and are eligible to donate, do so. And reward yourself with some burnt ends. The pic is actual burnt ends from Bryant's, just not the ones I ate. Comes with Wonder Bread and what seems to be a jar of pickles. I've learned to not get the fries, as much as I like 'em, because then I'm bloated for a week.

The Onion Visits Concordia

The Onion comes through again. I link this only because of the dozens of times I've driven through Concordia over the years. There's a 66 station there that used to have a female employee with a cultivated mustache. I'm not making that up.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/local-water-tower-celebrates-50th-year-as-reposito,17958/

My Trip to Springfield

Quick trip to Springfield to watch Mike Montgomery pitch for NW Arkansas vs. Springfield. Easy three hours down there. All credit to the EconoLodge for upgrading me to a better room-the faucet in my first room disintegrated when I first used it. We got the water turned off-and there was a lot of it-and they immediately got me a better room. Very friendly and helpful staff. Some decent donuts and OJ as part of the free breakfast.

While in line to buy a ticket, a nice guy gave me a free pass. I think he's a season ticket holder and this was a thank you gift from management from last season. Saved me a few bucks, which is always nice. Nice staff also. However, their concession prices are what the Chiefs charge here. Too much for the minors. And they need to get rid of all the distractions. Trivia questions while the game's going? Really?

A good trip-aided on the way back by stopping at an orchard near Osceola and buying a whole bunch of peaches and pears right off the trees.

Good for the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/2010/08/bbc-genome-the-complete-broadc.shtml

An actual reason to use this picture ... BBC rehearsal in 1934. For odd people like me, who like to listen to odd things on the mp3 player, it's been frustrating in the past to learn of a BBC radio program that I'd like to hear but can't because it's already been taken down. There is the torrent site radioarchive.cc that has some of it and a few Usenet groups, but nowhere that would have everything. Now the BBC intends to digitize their entire archive and make it available for listening anytime. Fabulous.

Bad Times at the Wall Street Journal

For the last two weeks, my Saturday WSJ has included a coupon supplement. I'm used to the occasional insert for some expensive car or a symphony located hundreds of miles from my home. But not this week's coupons for Steak & Shake.

Must not be going well for Murdoch. I'm sure the descendants of the founders who sold out must be so very proud.

Another Good Book

Not everything is a rant. Also endorsed, "Me, the Mob, and the Music" by Tommy James, written without the Shondells. Fairly short, entertaining story of how the music biz worked in the 60s. Lots of material about the mobbed-up label owner Morris Levy.

Remaking True Grit Sucks

An ancestor of mine, expressing her disapproval from the Great Beyond at the news some lame Hollywood studio is so bereft of ideas that they thought it was a clever idea to remake True Grit.

Fie upon all those involved.

Tokyo Vice is Very Good

I've been doing some serious catching up on my reading list. This was so good that I went through it in less than two days. I'm not doing affiliate linking or whatever here, so go get yerself a copy at the outlet of yer choice.

Not everything sucks this week.

Google Chrome Sucks

While I'm venting ... I gave Chrome a try. Worked decently for awhile, nothing special. Then I started to get weird error messages. Ran four different malware progs in case that was the problem. Searched online-via Firefox-for the error message and discovered it's a common problem for which Google can't be bothered to fix. The only workaround is to disable some of Chrome's built-in security.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Avoid.

FedEx Sucks

I ordered a turntable from Amazon and had it on two-day delivery. Amazon sent it via FedEx. I was out this morning doing errands. When I got home at noon, the FedEx tracking said the package had been delivered and left at my front door. The problem was that there was no package at my front door. I called FedEx and was told the driver would return by 6 pm "to show me where the package had been left". She took my phone number and said he'd call right before his arrival.

At 6:30 pm, having had no driver call or visit, I called again. The new rep told me that the driver had left the package at the wrong house, realized his mistake, went back and got it, then just drove off without leaving it at the right house. Just why he wasn't told to try again, I dunno. The next delivery date would be Tuesday, because Monday is some sort of Holy Day for FedEx where they don't work.

Except I'm on vacation and not around that day. And given that today's driver can't locate a simple address, I have no real confidence that Tuesday's driver won't just leave it in the street, hoping I'll stumble upon it. So back it goes to Amazon.

Just awful service. Let's see ... can't find my house. Delivers to wrong house. Phone rep gives me the wrong information, tells me I have to sit and wait for six hours. Can't be bothered to fix their mistake for another 72 hours. Their tracking site doesn't have accurate information.

Brutally hopeless. There's no chance I'd ever ship anything with them.

Ya Can't Trust Anybody

Some months back, some TV talking head called some politician a troglodyte. Seems that the conservative media watchpuppies took immediate offense. As part of their haste, they seem to have done a Google image search for the picture of a troglodyte and happily lifted the picture of the band Troglodyte. Of course, they weren't bothered to attribute the photo or provide a link to the band's website. Apparently, conservative values include theft of intellectual property.

Karma

As my friend Vinnie Bovine said, "First video he's made that I liked."

Truth in Advertising Justified

Can't say you weren't warned ...

Katz #2

And the Katz at 75th and Metcalf in Overland Park, which I saw all the time as a kid. I saw somewhere CVS wanted to tear this down but was stopped. Good job, opponents.

Katz

The locally-famous old Katz Drug Store at Westport and Main, KCMO. Sadly empty now, after CVS abandoned it.

Voice from the Past

Frank McGee interviewed Raymond Gram Swing in 1964.

Cats on a Leash

Tryouts for a movie, cleverly called "The Black Cat". I've considered trying my cats out on a leash, let 'em explore some of the yard. But not movie tryouts.

No idea

I knew it'd been a long time but 8+ months is unacceptable.

No idea what this is other than someone recording something for the BBC in 1934. Interesting mic, reason for mask unknown.